Five hundred home runs — congratulations, David Ortiz.
It’s a milestone and one we all knew you’d hit this year and we are thrilled for you. But frankly, that’s the least of what you’ve done for Red Sox Nation. You’ve been on base double the number of times you’ve struck out. You’ve batted in over 1,600 runs. The older you get, the more your opponents fear you, intentionally walking you almost 200 times this year alone. Without you, there would be no three World Series rings.
Big Papi, as we like to call you, you are the backbone of Red Sox Nation — a fierce competitor with fierce loyalty to the team and its fans. You struck just the right sympathetic tone when manager John Farrell announced he is fighting lymphoma. And when the Tsarnaev brothers bombed the Boston Marathon, you said what we were all thinking: this is our f-ing town.
Over the years we’ve been sorry to see a lot of great players leave the team: Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez, even Roger Clemens to name a few. But if anything like that had happened to you, there would have been civil unrest.
So — you are a free agent at the end of this season. We’ll see you next year.
