By the time David Ortiz ended his major league career at age 40, he was clearly one of the most revered figures in Boston’s sports history – right up there with Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Tom Brady, Larry Bird, and Bobby Orr. He also possessed a nickname, “Big Papi,” perfectly suited to his lovable persona, and a baseball swing that arguably makes him the game’s greatest clutch hitter. His slugging helped the Red Sox end their long World Series championship drought and bring the club titles in 2004, 2007, and 2013. In “Papi,” he covers the waterfront, everything from his humble beginnings in the Dominican Republic to his tense relationship with the Minnesota Twins’ management, to his role in helping to rally Boston after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
Here’s an excerpt from Papi:
“The specialist and some of my teammates knew what I’d done privately. They realized I’d played in pain, physical and emotional. I’d played as I went through stressful situations and family issues. I had never brought it to the field. I had left it in the Fenway parking lot, at the corner of Yawkey and Van Ness. The show had always gone on.
“It wasn’t going to be like that much longer. I’d already been warned by Pedro Martinez about what he felt was the biggest adjustment you have to make in retirement. He said it would be the lack of a routine. We had lived with tight schedules since we were teenagers in the minors, always needing to be in a certain place at a certain time. When baseball goes away, a player is suddenly an ex-player with an open schedule. And when the kids are in school, there’s the quiet of an empty house. Pedro said it might be uncomfortable at first. He said he missed the field, the competition and the challenges.”
