David Ortiz will retire at end of 2016 season.
- Thread starter soxhop411
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I remember reading that NY management was pretty gracious after game 7 in 2004, though I can't remember the details.
Tyler Kepner has a more balanced portrait of Ortiz in the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/sports/baseball/david-ortiz-retire-boston-red-sox.html?ref=sports
(I never heard of "The Week," so I don't know which article reaches more eyes.)
People have long seemed to think that their "keeping the lights on" was some canonical act of grace for some reason.
Ortiz wrote for the players tribune and its a must read
more at the link
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/david-ortiz-thanks-for-the-memories-new-york/
more at the link
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The Week is a British equivalent of Newsweek - i.e. simplifying news stories around the world for easy digestion by the masses. His must be a U.S. outlet of the magazine (they must have determined that the U.S. needs another such entity?!)
The author is Anthony L Fisher (filmmaker/journalist) seems to be a New Yorker who went to Emerson College and must have cultivated an aversion to all things Red Sox / Papi during that time.
He's made me laugh out loud so many times over the last 13 years.
Seriously, Yankee fan bloggers of the world, take your best shot at making me "reconsider" whether David Ortiz is objectively amazing. Please, I can't wait.
If you are referring to the retirement ceremony, you recall correctly.
From Papi's letter on The Players Tribune.
"I’m not gonna lie to you. Sometimes I get outta bed in the morning, and it’s like, Damn. What happened? I got old. It takes me a long time to get my body ready for these games now. But I guarantee you this. When our bus pulls up to Yankee Stadium today, I’m gonna be ready to go. And when I hear you boo me, I’m gonna try to hit the ball over that white fence, all the way to the mother******* choo choo train."
Respect.
"I’m not gonna lie to you. Sometimes I get outta bed in the morning, and it’s like, Damn. What happened? I got old. It takes me a long time to get my body ready for these games now. But I guarantee you this. When our bus pulls up to Yankee Stadium today, I’m gonna be ready to go. And when I hear you boo me, I’m gonna try to hit the ball over that white fence, all the way to the mother******* choo choo train."
Respect.
Will the two NESN specials, The David Ortiz Era and The Journey be put up on the web? The only time we get NESN on Direct TV is when there's a Sox game (via MLB EI)
What are the possibilities if the Thursday game is rained out (as looks possible)? How/when could they get a make up in?
Monday would be the makeup day. Not sure if they do makeup games when the only issue is needing each team to play 162 to see who has best record over a full season, but I doubt they'd do that. Any ceremony would probably be done in a function room at the stadium in private on Thursday.
It'd be awesome to add some symmetry to his career. He wrote another Players' Tribune piece in June thanking the Twins, and it talked about how his first game when he was called up from AAA was at Wrigley playing the Cubs....
They also played the Sinatra version of NYNY instead of Liza's.
How quickly people forget.
Really? Because I think it would be broadcast on YES and NESN in an hour long special with special seating starting at $300 a person with the chance to meet Papi and get an autograph
I'm not sure I ever heard that--so, OK, that's fair. That's pretty cool.
If they could, sure, but that would be on super short notice. And those tix would sell in NYC and the seats would be empty
Tons of Sox fans in NYC that would sell something like that out if it happened IMO.
CHB had an interesting article in today's Boston Globe. Here is the link is here, but note that it comes with a Shank trigger warning:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2016/09/27/confirmed-david-ortiz-will-get-into-hall-fame/penpFdYj7XliUY1a2eOnkO/story.html?event=event12
Anyway, he apparently spoke to 8 New York media members that are also BBWAA members, aka Hall of Fame voters. 6 of the 8 unequivocally said they would vote for Ortiz when he's eligible for the HoF; 1 said no due to the PED's issue, but said he may still change his mind on that; and the 8th said he would only talk about the upcoming class. There was a lot of discussion about voting for suspected PED users; most are beginning to feel it's time to look past that. The DH issue also came up, but none of the voters considered that a roadblock.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2016/09/27/confirmed-david-ortiz-will-get-into-hall-fame/penpFdYj7XliUY1a2eOnkO/story.html?event=event12
Anyway, he apparently spoke to 8 New York media members that are also BBWAA members, aka Hall of Fame voters. 6 of the 8 unequivocally said they would vote for Ortiz when he's eligible for the HoF; 1 said no due to the PED's issue, but said he may still change his mind on that; and the 8th said he would only talk about the upcoming class. There was a lot of discussion about voting for suspected PED users; most are beginning to feel it's time to look past that. The DH issue also came up, but none of the voters considered that a roadblock.
I think you are overstating the amount of credit that has been given to the Yankees, but they did keep the lights on for an extra hour and encouraged Boston fans to come down to the area by the dugout and home plate to be closer to the team.
Not earth-shattering, but very respectful of the fact that there were maybe 5,000 Red Sox fans there who had just witnessed history and they let them celebrate for a good long time.
And also the fans who over the years have, of course, on occasion been tough on RS fans were amazingly gracious in general. Even more so when you consider what a tough series loss. Yankee fans graciously gave up their prime behind the dugout seats to RS fans, congratulated RS fans and really could not have been nicer.
I've heard about it ten thousand times from Red Sox fans. Never seemed earth shattering to me.
They gave up their seats after the game was over, you mean? Instead of hanging around to watch the Red Sox celebrate.
Upper tier Yankee fans were crude and despicable. Lower tier fans had more money so they behaved better. But they were all infected with the Arrogant & Entitled Virus.
(Although maybe you witnessed gracious behavior firsthand. I was only there for Games 1 and 6, before the spell was broken... and the fans seemed to derive slightly more joy tormenting us then actually winning themselves, as they'd had plenty of that since '96.)
I think David's timing is perfect -- getting out, and eventually in.
Out because he is ending his career in Jim Brown/Barry Sanders fashion. I'm really hard pressed to recall many baseball players who went out on top like this. Most of them go out like Brooks Robinson. But it's time.
In because the dinosaurs will eventually lose their grip on HOF voting, and because David is David. I suspect he'll be among the first of "these guys" to make it.
David may be in a class by himself, actually along with Ted Williams. Look at Ted's 1960. Jim Brown quit football to make more money in the movies, playing with Raquel Welch
, et al. He probably had a lot left in the tank, quitting the NFL at 29! Sanders was just tired of playing for a loser? I don't know. He quit at 30. I think David wrung every last year out of his body, especially below the knees.
Ummm, yeah.
Nice little ceremony at the toilet. Another painting and a book for his coffee table. Would have been nice if the team had come out to greet him.
Nice little ceremony at the toilet. Another painting and a book for his coffee table. Would have been nice if the team had come out to greet him.