An inside look at David Ortiz’s last moments in a Red Sox uniform
David Ortiz arrived at Fenway Park early Monday afternoon aware that it might be his last day as a player. For the first time in his career, he circled the ballpark in his car, trying to grasp the full dimensions of the potential finality.
A player who over the season’s final months typically eschewed batting practice in favor of time in the trainer’s room made a point of popping out of the dugout and into the cage before Game 3 of the American League Division Series. By his third round of hacks, he was launching comets over the Red Sox bullpen as if as a final offering of gifts to the fans.
He could not deliver the same in the actual game. Indeed, he did not have the opportunity to do so.
That Ortiz’s final plate appearance — bottom of the eighth, chance to tie a playoff game with something of an echo of his famous home run against the Tigers in 2013 — should feature four straight pitches off the plate, en route to a walk and an eventual departure in favor of a pinch runner, seemed too anticlimactic to stomach, even for Ortiz.
“Once I got out of the game, I was screaming at my team to put me back in it,” Ortiz said of his transformation into a cheerleading role at 9:21 p.m. “Make me wear this uniform one more day, because I wasn’t ready to be over with the playoffs.”
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