So Long Big Papi! Cleveland Sweeps Red Sox
11 Oct, 2016
David Ortiz’s career has ended because his teammates couldn’t hit enough in October, the month in which he has hit better than just about anyone who has ever swung a bat in anger.
Not sure if that’s irony or just cruelty. But, unfortunately, it’s the reality. The Red Sox scored seven runs in three games against a Cleveland team alleged to have a decimated starting rotation, their bats awakening only when their outs were at a minimum.
And so the dream of the ultimate walk-off and the career of the most important player in Red Sox history simultaneously met an abrupt end.
Let the record show that the final in-game scene of Ortiz’s career came in the eighth inning, when Marco Hernandez replaced him as the potential tying run on second base after he’d walked in his final plate appearance and moved up on a Hanley Ramirez rocket single. (Time will tell whether the Hernandez-for-Ortiz swap will equate obscurity-wise to Chico Walker taking over for Yaz in left field in his final game in ’83. I like it’s chances.)
But the final scene was much more devastating and poignant than watching him walk in his final at-bat. In the incongruous moments after the final out in Cleveland’s clinching 4-3 win, after the deserving Indians took their celebration from the field into the clubhouse, the lingering Fenway crowd chanted, “Papi, Papi,’’ wanting to say goodbye one last time. It’s hard to believe a single soul left.
Ortiz eventually emerged, standing atop the mound, tears streaming down his cheeks as he doffed his cap to the crowd. His was the salute Ted Williams could not bring himself to offer in his final game, and a scene reserved only for the most beloved of the beloved — a curtain call in defeat. To say he’ll be missed would be to redefine understatement.
Even after we’ve said goodbye and so has he, let’s still hold out hope for a change of heart. Right now, in the immediate aftermath of the end, the moment is too raw to acknowledge the reality.
The most important player in Red Sox history is no longer making history. He is past tense. Big Papi is history.
Boston.com
Image Red Sox Twitter
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