THE HALL COULD BE CALLING FOR ORTIZ
Class of 2022 to be announced tonight
Before Boston became Title Town, Fenway Park was a place for Red Sox fans to gather together and grieve.
Slivers of hope were always darkened by the inevitable dread of disappointment.
Early playoff exits continued to further the gap between the Sox and Yankees in the ’90s and early 2000s, prompting endless mentions of the Curse of the
Bambino.
Until David Ortiz showed up. Tonight, at 6:15 p.m. ET, MLB Network will reveal the next batch of Hall of Fame inductees.
Of the 177 ballots that have been made public, Ortiz has been on 84.5% of them, according to records kept by the wildly popular @Notmrtibbs on Twitter. With 392 ballots expected in total, Ortiz needs to be on just 144 of the remaining 215 ballots (67%).
Barry Bonds (on 77.5% of public ballots) and Roger Clemens (76.5%), on the ballot for their 10th and final time, will be on standby as well.
Rarely has there been an athlete as transcendent as Ortiz to call Boston home for the majority of his career.
Born on Nov. 18, 1975, in the Dominican Republic’s capital of Santo Domingo, Ortiz signed with the Seattle Mariners around his 17th birthday and arrived in the United States a year later. The Mariners gave up on him after three years in the minors and sent him to Minnesota for Dave Hollins. The Twins kept him for parts of six big league seasons, but released the 26-year-old Ortiz to save money before the 2003 season.
Theo Epstein and the Sox scooped him up for $1.25 million.
Ten months later, Ortiz had accumulated 31 homers with
101 RBI and finished fifth in 2003 American League MVP voting.
In ’04, he hit a walk-off homer on Jarrod Washburn to eliminate the Angels from the Division Series. He hit another walkoff homer on Paul Quantrill to keep the Sox alive in Game 4 of the ALCS vs. the Yankees. He hit a walk-off single against Esteban Loiaza to win Game 5 later that night.
After defeating the Yankees in the ALCS and the Cardinals in the World Series, Ortiz lifted the Sox’ first World Series trophy in 86 years.
He won two more titles, in 2007 and 2013.
In ’13, when the Sox’ potent offense had been held quiet through the first 17 innings of the ALCS vs. the Tigers, Ortiz broke it open with a grand slam off Joaquin Benoit.
When asked about his clutch gene after the game, Ortiz said, “I tell you what, man, postseason is something that it can work both ways for you. It can go well if you stay calm. Or it can go bad if you try to overdo things.”
Comparing players from different eras wasn’t something Ortiz believed in, not even after he became the fifth player in MLB history to record 10 seasons of 30-plus homers and 100-plus RBIS with a single team (the Yankees’ Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols and the Braves’ Hank Aaron were the others) before retiring in 2016.
“Times are different,” Ortiz said then.
He mentioned his admiration for Ted Williams, noting “Mr. Williams went to war, was fighting for all of us, and to come back and become an entertainer again. Not many hu
mans are capable of doing that.”
It was fitting that Ortiz used the word “entertainer.” The Red Sox hadn’t had a pure entertainer like Ortiz since Pedro Martinez, and they might never have another one again.
Ortiz once threw punches at former Orioles closer Kevin Gregg, sparred with David Price about celebrating after home runs, beat the numbers out of the dugout phone with his bat at Camden Yards and grabbed the microphone at Fenway to tell a grieving crowd, “this is our (expletive) city.”
The reported positive test for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, when MLB was supposed to be anonymously surveying players and did not have proper testing methods for a batch of results that were scrutinized by both players and league officials alike, is the only mark on Ortiz’s resumé.
“There’s a reason why I’ve been tested like 40 times since they approved the policy, the drug policy,” Ortiz said in 2014. “Is that a free pass? They can get that free pass and shove it up their (expletive).”
Ortiz never tested positive for PEDS after MLB implemented a policy in 2004.
He never shied away from attention, but was just as impressive in private, where he could be found coaching young players or working with the David Ortiz Children’s Fund.
“The first thing I noticed was the first time I ever played at Fenway Park, it made me feel like I was playing back in my country,” Ortiz said in ’ 16. “We don’t have turf in the Dominican. We had grass. Walking into Fenway, feeling that grass, feeling that summer heat, feeling everybody on top of you, watching you, knowing how much our fans suffer every time we lost a game…
“That’s how we are back home. That’s how we are. We live for the game. We love the game. We support the game. Red Sox fans, man, they’re just like that.”
If elected Tuesday night, he’ll enter the Hall of Fame 17th in homers (541), 12th in doubles (632) and 23rd in RBI (1,768).
In 85 postseason games, he hit .289 with a .947 OPS, 17 homers and 61 RBI, earning ALCS MVP honors in ‘04 and World Series MVP honors in ‘13.
But he’ll be remembered most for the way he made every game interesting.
If Ortiz was playing, the Red Sox were never out of it.