But what has not been public knowledge was Ortiz’s compromising behavior off the field that went right to the heart of the integrity of the game – and for which he was also let off the hook by Manfred. In his 2018 book “Baseball Cop”, Eddie Dominguez, a high ranking Boston police detective and former FBI and DEA task member who was part of MLB’s since-abolished internal investigation unit, chronicled his three-year investigation of Big Papi and the Red Sox’s DH’s close association with an alleged Dominican drug dealer called “Monga,” who was in the U.S. illegally.
As part of the investigation of “Monga” and his involvement with PEDs, it was discovered that he was a frequent visitor to a Dominican barbershop in Boston with a gambling parlor in the basement, where witnesses said, he was placing large bets on Red Sox games in 2005. Just after Ortiz was presented with this information by MLB investigators, the barbershop abruptly closed. Dominguez reported that he was finally able to get “Monga” banned from the Red Sox clubhouse (where he’d been Ortiz’s constant companion), only to see him on TV, on the field at the 2006 All-Star Game Home Run Derby in Pittsburgh, toweling off Big Papi and the other Dominican players. When Dominguez voiced his outrage to his superiors at MLB, he was informed that Ortiz had told then-Commissioner Bud Selig and his deputy, Manfred, that if “Monga” and his posse were not allowed on the field, he would not participate in the Home Run Derby. Not long after, “Monga” was arrested at Ortiz’s house, where he was staying, and deported for immigration violations.
And then, of course, there was the infamous assassination attempt on Ortiz in the Dominican Republic on June 9, 2019, reputedly ordered by another Dominican drug lord, a situation that is still being sorted out.