Yesterday, on his 40th birthday, Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz announced that he will retire at the end of the 2016 season, bringing to a close the most consequential career in the history of the team since Babe Ruth. Although Hall of Famers like Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, Wade Boggs, and Pedro Martinez had greater overall careers, only one of them (Pedro, once) ever tasted World Champion bubbly.
This past season, Ortiz clubbed his 500th career home run, the 27th player in the history of the game to hit the milestone but, when it comes time to give the man his due with a plaque in Cooperstown, it will be his exploits in the Fall Classic that will be on the minds of the entire sport. At some point I’ll tackle the debate about whether Ortiz will be in the Hall of Fame (certainly I think he should) but this is an appreciation from a Red Sox fan for the memorable career of Big Papi, a man with a big body, a big heart and a penchant for the big hit, many of which you can re-live in the links below.
If Reggie Jackson was Mr. October, David Ortiz has been Senor Octubre.
Before 2004, the last time the Boston Red Sox had won the World Series, Woodrow Wilson was president, the First World War was just concluding, the average home cost $4,821 to own, and gasoline was 8 cents per gallon. It was 1918 and the Red Sox won the World Series in 6 games over the Chicago Cubs thanks in part to two complete game victories by an ace starting pitcher named Babe Ruth. Yes, you read that correctly, the man who would become the Sultan of Swat for the Yankees was, until 1918, a pitcher (and a damned good one) for the Sox. Just two years prior, the 21-year-old Ruth pitched one of the greatest games in the history of the World Series, a 14-inning complete game in which he yielded just one first-inning run in a 2-1 victory. So, in the span of 3 years, the young pitcher had been an integral part of two Championships. Seeing that the budding star had even more potential as a batsman, the Sox made Ruth a full-time outfielder in 1919 (on the days he didn’t pitch) and then, in what would begin a cruel 86-year Curse of the Bambino, Ruth was sold to the Yankees on the day after Christmas for $100,000.
Over its 86 years, the Curse grew to mythical proportions. The Sox only made it to the World Series four times between 1919 to 2003; each time they lost in seven games. That doesn’t count the near-misses, such as the 1978 season when the team blew a 10-game lead to the Bronx Bombers or the 2003 season when they blew an 8th inning Game 7 ALCS lead to the Yanks.
The way the 2003 season ended was uniquely cruel. It’s not well remembered in BoSox lore but Ortiz (in his first season with the Sox), clubbed an 8th inning solo home run off David Wells to extend the team’s lead to 5-2. With future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez on the hill, victory seemed certain. But the 170-pound Pedro was not a workhorse in the mold of a Randy Johnson or Clemens. He was a 7 inning pitcher, a brilliant 7 inning pitcher but not someone you could count on to finish a full 9. Many observers (including this one) were surprised when, at 100 pitches, he came out to pitch the 8th. More surprising was that manager Grady Little left him in to get tagged with three doubles, a single, and a 3-run lead that evaporated. Three innings later Aaron Boone did his best Bucky Dent impersonation with a walk-off sole home run to send the Yankees to the Fall Classic and the Sox back home.
So now we arrive at 2004: Ortiz brought Boston back to an ALCS rematch with the Yankees by clubbing an opposite field walk-off home run to clinch Game 3 of the ALDS against the Angels. Hopes were high in Beantown but the Yankees won the first three games of the ALCS rematch, winning Game 3 with a 19-8 humiliation at Fenway Park. In Game 4, the Yankees had a 4-3 lead in the 9th and Mariano Rivera, the greatest post-season relief pitcher in history (by a country mile) on the mound to close it out. But a lead-off walk to Kevin Millar led to a stolen base by pinch-runner Dave Roberts which led to an RBI single up the middle by Bill Mueller to tie the game at 4. With nobody out and the tying run at 2nd, the Sox could have closed it out there. Rivera rarely gave up even one run but he had only given up two runs twice in 67 previous post-season efforts, the famous one being on a broken bat walk-off single by Luis Gonzalez that barely cleared the infield in Game 7 of the 2001 Series against Arizona. So on this night Rivera got out of the jam, ironically by getting Ortiz to pop out with two outs and the bases loaded. The birth of a legend would have to wait a few innings.
Fast forward to the 12th inning: the score was still tied at 4. Journeyman pitcher Paul Quantrill was on the bump, with Rivera and set-up man Tom Gordon having already been used up. Manny Ramirez, the team’s $160 million man, led off the frame with a single to left, bringing Big Papi to the dish. After ball one, Ortiz drilled the 2nd offering deep into the right field seats with a walk-off 2-run home run, ending a five-hour game and prolonging the 2004 season for at least one more night. That blast, delivered 1:22 AM on the morning of October 18th, was the beginning of the October legend of David Ortiz.
In baseball history, in the 22 previous 3-games-to-0 situations (including both the World Series and LCS), on only three previous occasions had a team managed even to win Game 4. Two of those teams lost Game 5; only the 1999 New York Mets managed to win both Games 4 and 5 (against the Atlanta Braves) before succumbing in Game 6. So the mountain the Red Sox were trying to climb was still the unconquered Mount Everest of sports.
In Game 5, the Sox were again up against it late in the game, trailing by two runs in the 8th. Ortiz led off the inning with another mostly forgotten tater, a solo home run over the Green Monster off Gordon to cut the lead to 4-3. Then Gordon, perhaps trying to emulate the great Rivera, allowed a walk to Millar. Roberts entered again as a pinch-runner and advanced to 3rd on a single by Trot Nixon. Yankees manager Joe Torre summoned Rivera to attempt a Houdini act, hoping to coax a six-out save with the tying run on 3rd but Jason Varitek managed a game-tying sacrifice fly.
Six innings went by without another run in a battle of the pens. Then in the bottom of the 14th, reliever Esteban Loaiza allowed a one-out walk to Johnny Damon followed by a two-out walk to Ramirez. And then, for the second night in a row, Big Papi delivered the knockout blow with a walk-off RBI single up the middle and a 14-inning victory, setting up a trip to New York for Game 6. To do it once was amazing, to do it twice with a 24-hour span was, well, the stuff of a fairy tale.
Game 6 in New York was the “bloody sock” game, when starter Curt Schilling heroically took the mound on a bum ankle on which team doctor Bill Morgan had to suture a loose tendon back into the skin. Schilling (who should also be in the Hall of Fame for his many post-season heroics), tossed 7 innings of one-run ball in a 4-2 victory, making the Red Sox the first team to force a Game 7 after being down three games to none. The Sox would win the 7th game easily, a 10-3 blowout started by, who else, Big Papi, who hit a 2-run blast in a first inning to give Boston a lead they would not relinquish.
Although the Curse of the Bambino was about a championship drought, not a drought of making it to the Fall Classic, there was something about the historic come-from-behind 4-3 series win against New York that felt like an exorcism. In the World Series, the Sox rolled over the St. Louis Cardinals in a four-game sweep. In Game 1 it was, surprise, Ortiz who set the pace with a 3-run home run in the opening frame. The Redbirds would eventually rally to tie the score on two separate occasions before the Bostonians prevailed 11-9. Schilling, Martinez, Derek Lowe and the Sox bullpen would surrender only three runs in the final three games of the series.
October has birthed many legends in the history of baseball, many championships are delivered by a “hero of the year.” In 2014 it was Madison Bumgarner; in 2011 it was David Freese; think Schilling and Randy Johnson in 2001, Derek Jeter in 2000, Joe Carter in 1993, Jack Morris in 1999, and Kirk Gibson in 1988, just to name a few. Very rarely does an October legend get a second act: I honestly can’t think of any other who didn’t don the Yankee uniform. David Ortiz not only had a second October act, but a third.
Big Papi’s second act (and second ring) came in 2007: although he didn’t have any signature moments as in 2004, Ortiz still clubbed 3 home runs with 10 RBI in the postseason along with a 1.204 OPS.
The third act was just two seasons ago. 2013 was not supposed to be a good year for the Red Sox. They had come off a miserable 93-loss campaign. In the off-season, GM Ben Cherington drew an inside straight with a series of smaller free agent signings, bringing in multiple gritty, gutty players who completely changed the character and competence of the team. Newcomers Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, David Ross, and Koji Uehara all were integral parts of a team that improved from 69 to 97 wins and and easy division title.
In the ALDS, Ortiz wasted little time to reclaim his mantle of Senor Octubre; he clubbed two solo home runs off David Price (the 2012 Cy Young Award winner), leading the bearded Bostonians to a 3-1 series win. In the ALCS, the Red Sox were up against the Detroit Tigers and a troika of premier starting pitchers. Anibal Sanchez and four relievers shut them out in a 1-0 Game 1 Tigers win in which the Sox managed a total of one hit.
In Game 2, Max Scherzer, who would win take the Cy Young trophy that year, allowed just one run on two hits (with 13 strikeouts) in 7 spectacular frames. With a 5-1 lead and Scherzer having thrown 108 pitches, manager Jim Leyland went to his pen. Although this was probably the right move given Mad Max’ pitch count, there had to be a sense of relief in the Sox dugout. Leyland used four pitchers in the bottom of the 8th: three different pitchers managed to load the bases while getting only two outs.
With two outs and the sacks full, Leyland summoned his fourth reliever of the inning, closer Joaquin Benoit. On the very first pitch, Ortiz smacked the ball to deep right field; 9-time Gold Glover Torii Hunter raced back to the wall to try to make a game-saving catch, the kind of catch he had made many times in his illustrious career. But Hunter came up just short, tumbling over the wall in a gallant effort. Fenway Park, which just minutes ago had been quiet as a cathedral with a 5-1 deficit, exploded into Papi-fueled delirium on the game-tying grand slam. If Ortiz had hit the ball just a bit more softly, Hunter would have caught the ball, the inning would have ended and the Sox would have likely headed back to Detroit facing a 2-0 series deficit.
It would be Ortiz’ only hit of the ALCS against Detroit, but it was a series-changing hit. The Sox won the game in the bottom of the 9th and would take the series in 6 games. In the World Series against St. Louis, Big Papi was out of the this world: with his 2 home runs and 6 RBI came a .688 batting average, a 1.948 OPS and a series MVP Award. (For reference purposes, OPS measures On-Base% plus Slugging% and Oritz’ 1.948 number was double what it usually takes to win a season-long MVP trophy).
So, on a team that went 86 years without a World Series title, David Ortiz delivered three in the span of ten years. He wasn’t just the only player on all three championship teams of 2004, 2007 and 2013, he was an indispensable member of those teams and that is why, although he is not the greatest player in Red Sox history, he is biggest folk hero now and likely for decades to come. 2016 will be his final season. Will he have a fourth act in October? This writer certainly hopes so.
Thanks for reading!
Chris Bodig