This will be the last season David Ortiz will get the chance to torture the New York Yankees, and their fans, before hanging up his cleats and moving on to the baseball afterlife. At Red Sox spring training, he indicated that he would like the Yankee fans to give him a ‘standing ovation’, in his last trip to the Bronx later this season. He further went on to say that he didn’t ‘expect or want any gifts – but would take the standing ovation’.
Big Papi Wants Cheers from Yankee Fans – Really?
I can tell you one Yankees fan that would never think about standing up, or even cheering, for Ortiz – yours truly. In fact, I would rather go to the restroom, grab the last beer or hot dog before the end of the seventh inning, or even leave early to beat the crowd on the subway. Is he kidding? He must be. Ortiz, of all players for all teams in the league – much less the hated Red Sox – has the gall and audacity to make such a request to Yankee fans? Who the heck does he think he is – Derek Jeter or Mo Rivera?
It’s not April 1st, so it can’t be April fool’s Day, but that’s exactly what Papi is doing to the fans of the twenty-seven time world champs. Is there any more hated rivalry than that of the Bronx Bombers and the Red Sox? Can anyone forget the ‘we finally won a World Series title’, after almost 100 years, and the Yankees collapse in the ALCS after being up three games to none – with the aforementioned Mariano Rivera on the mound to try to close the deal? He must have a short memory, or for some reason feel he is entitled to this farewell tour of his.
Lest people forget, Ortiz was a so-so player, at best, when he was with the Minnesota Twins – a .250 hitter at best, and certainly did not have the kind of home run prowess that he was able to sustain upon becoming a member of the BoSox. In fact, he was basically a cast-off by the Twins, and didn’t look like he had a future in baseball with any team. If we’re going to be totally transparent, we have to mention the PED era, and the failed drug test Ortiz had, despite the fact that the results were never to come out in public. Can anyone say A-Rod?
Let’s face facts – and I will be the first to admit that being a Yankees fan makes me a little bit tainted – but how can anyone edify this guy when baseball did everything in their power to try and destroy Rodriguez and his career two years ago. No one says A-Rod is a choir boy, far from it, but let’s try to put all this posturing by Ortiz into perspective. Does anyone in their wildest dreams, think that Red Sox fans will ever give Rodriguez anything but the middle finger and four letter words in his last game at Fenway? Deserved? Probably. But, the Red Sox fans, like Yankee fans, are smarter than to let one last at bat at the opposing ballpark throw away years of bad memories by both players.
Cal Ripken, Jr., Jeter, Rivera, and some of the other greats, that make baseball what it is – and have not tainted the game, on or off the field – are the players that deserve to be cheered and rewarded for their many years of playing the game. Furthermore, none of them, or anyone that I can recall, has ever requested fans to acknowledge them before spring training games even commence. Talk about being an ego-maniac. Yankee fans are a unique bunch, like those in Boston, and this will only enhance the battle between the two clubs, which should make a fun season of games.
Ortiz has had a great ‘second’ career with Boston – saved by being a lifelong DH. Many baseball purists still don’t believe that designated hitters are really ‘hitters’ at all, and it’s just a way to prolong the careers of older players that can still hit the ball, but not play the field. The National League doesn’t have this problem, although there’s talk that they may actually cave and institute a DH in the coming seasons. Sometimes, players have to know when to hang up their cleats and move on with their lives. Ortiz is one of those, but not the only one.
Red Sox fans should be happy that they had such great run since winning their first of three world championships since 2004, and Ortiz has been a big part of that for them – good or bad. That doesn’t mean the rest of the baseball world, or the fans that don’t root for Boston, should thank him for his service to baseball. It’s almost a guarantee that Big Papi has made their lives a living hell from time to time, and they can’t wait for him to call it a day at the end of the season. To think that he deserves anything more than that is just totally outlandish and presumptuous on his part – but isn’t that what Papi is all about? A legend in his own mind.
Main Photo:
