No one in Red Sox history deserves the benefit of the doubt more than David Ortiz
COMMENTARY
Hello and welcome to David Ortiz Character Assassination Monday, where a player who has delivered in more big moments than anyone else in Red Sox history is bludgeoned with innuendo, speculation, and vague accusations of quitting because he missed a semi-important game with an illness.
Hello and welcome to us, at our worst.
Smoldering takes on Ortiz, who missed the Red Sox’ first-half-ending loss to the Yankees Sunday with an upper respiratory illness that required IV treatment, were unavoidable on both of our city’s prominent sports radio stations this afternoon. That we’re conditioned to expect it does not make the prevalence of the ignorant inanity any more tolerable. It’s a reminder that Boston, for all of the reasons it is a wonderful and fulfilling sports landscape, also can have a deliberately reprehensible streak when the seasons have slowed and there’s not much real to discuss.
Forget the irony that many of those doing the accusing – fill-in sports radio hosts whom I’d call D-listers only because there is no E-list – are working today only because someone else is not. Blindly criticizing Ortiz is lowest-common-denominator, Boston-sports-media take jackal-hood at its most despicable.
Maybe (probably, hopefully) you’re smarter than me. Maybe you switched over to music or some nice, peaceful podcast this morning once the inanity began seeping through your car’s speakers. Maybe you missed the chief accusation, which I am now going to helpfully fill you in on since I’m sure as hell not suffering this nonsense alone.
The conjecture is that Ortiz begged out of the game and started his All-Star break early because he didn’t want to play first base. Yep. That’s it. I know, that sentence looks even stupider in print than it sounds on the radio, but there you go. This is the world we have wrought for ourselves. The worst part is that these inane, desperate talking points worm their way into the wee brains of a segment of the fan base who repeat that conjecture verbatim, allowing the hot-take to metastasize until it cannot be avoided.
Like most utter b.s., there is some tiny kernel of a basis in reality. Ortiz has been up front in acknowledging that he does not like to play first base, given that he’s 39 and everything hurts at 39 and he’s justifiably worried about injury. I have no doubt he did not want to play first base yesterday.
But to draw a weaving line from there all the way over to the point where you’re parroting the nonsense about him bailing out on the team in arguably the most important game they’ve played this season … I mean, do you allow yourself any joy? Or are you just in it for the fake controversy, to have something to be angry about? And if it’s the latter, this is a particularly silly battle to choose.
It’s almost as if the past sins-against-the-game of Manny Ramirez have been transferred to Ortiz. Geez, even Shaughnessy says there’s nothing to see here.
Of course I understand the frustration with his absence. He’s been hitting lately (.973 OPS in July), and they needed him. He wasn’t there. I understand even the occasional frustration with Ortiz himself. He gets annoyingly worked up about perceived slights sometimes. And I agree he is selfish … because baseball is an inherently selfish game. Even Brock Holt, that All-Star bastion of scrap, is frustrated when he goes 0 for 5.
David Ortiz’s selfishness – his desire to maximize every single one of his plate appearances – is perhaps the major reason you have had three World Series titles to celebrate since 2004 after going 0-for-your-lifetime previously. No one – no one – has come through more when his team needs him, and in much bigger situations than any presented Sunday.
Pity the sad fool who, incapable of common sense, context and compelling conversation, suggests out of desperation that Ortiz would abandon them now because he didn’t want to wear a glove.
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