The Red Sox themselves have had plenty of immortals, from Williams to Yaz to Pudge to Pedro, but Ortiz’s championship success and staying power are unmatched. Bobby Orr may have been the greatest player to ever lace up skates, but even in chilly Boston the stars on the ice will never outshine Fenway’s brightest lights. Brady is Brady but the Pats aren’t the Sawx Bird is an icon but his heart always belonged to French Lick. Big Papi is far from the greatest athlete in the city’s history, but a third World Series title would surely make him the most beloved. Ortiz’s connection to Boston is defined by triumph but was forged in misery, and has been nurtured by his own unique endurance. That charge, coming as it did from one of the most loathed figures in Red Sox history, likely made Ortiz even more popular, if such a thing is even possible. Red Sox fans don’t just love Ortiz because he was there in 2004, they also love him because he was there in 2003 and has suffered through everything before and since: ugly divorces with erstwhile franchise stars from Nomar Garciaparra to Manny Ramirez to Josh Beckett, to his own positive PED test ( failed in 2003 but revealed in 2009, despite the fact that MLB’s survey testing was supposed to remain anonymous), relatively abysmal 20 seasons, and many games lost to injury just last year, when then-manager Bobby Valentine essentially accused him of quitting on the team. Much has been made this postseason of Ortiz being the lone player remaining from that 2004 Red Sox team, but that’s the stuff of drive-by hagiography and is only part of the story. Here was a game the Sox were supposed to win, which meant they were really supposed to lose, except then they won, and suddenly rules were being broken. But something about that home run still feels crucial, if only in retrospect. The fact that this home run is now an afterthought in the postseason exploits of David Ortiz tells us all we need to know about everything he’s done since. At the time of this writing it’s still climbing. In Game 4, Ortiz treated his teammates to a fiery fifth-inning pep talk, the contents of which remain unknown but which currently ranks somewhere between “ How do you like them apples?” and Kennedy’s Inaugural in the annals of great speeches by Bostonians. He’s become a walking invitation to magical thinking, so much that his impact seems to exceed the diamond itself. His stats in the World Series (.465 BA/ 556 OBP/.814 SLG) are historically spectacular. Ortiz’s career numbers in the postseason (.296 batting average/.403 on-base percentage/.554 slugging percentage) are excellent. “ I was born for this,” he declared after Game 5, over the protestations of absolutely no one. Ortiz’s blend of will, skill, and style takes special form in October, when he alchemizes the unbelievable into the inexorable. Terms like “charisma” and “star power” are tempting but imply something vaguely unearned, the stuff of politicians and rom-com actors. Many are more versatile, some are more virtuosic, and a few might even be more talented, but when Ortiz steps into the batter’s box it’s hard to remember any of their names. David Ortiz is a baseball player like Keith Richards is a guitar player.
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