Papi

by David Ortiz

  “Aren’t we going out?” a few of my boys asked.

  “Nah,” I told them. “I’m going to stay right here.”

  I couldn’t get the game out of my head. Our regular-season matchups with the Yankees were already intense enough, but these six games we’d played in the series were more intense than ever. I’d never seen anything like it. This was two teams who respected each other, literally fighting for the pennant and a chance to win the World Series. We had thrown at them and they had thrown at us. Their 72-year-old bench coach, Don Zimmer, had run out of the dugout and chased after our ace, Pedro Martínez, because he thought Pedro was trying to intimidate the Yankees by being a headhunter. Manny Ramírez had pointed and yelled at Roger Clemens because he thought Clemens was trying to hit him with an inside pitch. Two of their players, Karim García and Jeff Nelson, even got into a fight with a part-time groundskeeper at Fenway.

  Why did these things happen? Because it was Boston versus New York, and when those two cities are mentioned side by side, it’s never a neutral conversation. After spending the spring, summer, and fall in Boston, I had finally begun to grasp what I had gotten myself into. When I was in Minneapolis, Tiffany and I used to go across the street from the Metrodome to a bar called Buff’s Pub. We’d go there to eat chicken wings, have beers, and watch TV. Buff’s also provided free self-serve popcorn. One time I remember going back to the popcorn machine to serve myself seconds and a customer came up to me and requested another serving. He thought I worked there. Keep in mind that I was in the same neighborhood where the Twins play half of their games. I was never recognized there, though, and it wasn’t because I was trying to keep a low profile. That just wasn’t the culture of baseball fans there. If it was, I didn’t experience it. So, officially, as a member of the Twins, my popcorn requests outnumbered my autograph requests when I was at Buff’s.

  Contrast that with Boston. The three of us—Tiffany, our daughter Alex, who was two years old at the time, and me—were living in a tiny Garrison Square apartment. I thought if they didn’t know me after six years in the Twin Cities, why would anyone in Boston know me after six weeks? But when Tiffany and Alex ran errands, people would see Tiffany’s last name and make the connection with the new Red Sox player. They just knew. They even knew what I might be able to bring to the team.

  As I sat in my hotel room, I thought of how far I’d come since that angry meeting with Theo Epstein five months earlier. I was convinced that he’d endorsed playing Jeremy Giambi over me because of the novelty of a Giambi playing for both the Red Sox and Yankees. I swear I thought that was the reason. If we’d been the team with Jason Giambi, I might have been able to understand. But playing behind Jeremy Giambi was a circus, and the only reason I could find for the Red Sox to play him over me was his last name. Was it true? I wasn’t willing to shrug it off and say that it wasn’t.

  You have to understand how much time I’d spent venting to the people closest to me. Tiffany spent several nights simply listening as I ranted about being a backup to players I knew I was better than. Most baseball wives and girlfriends can relate to what Tiffany was experiencing. This is a hard game with a lot of public commentary attached to it. Our spouses see and hear us without any filter. They hear about frustrations and politics that a lot of fans never consider. When I was in the minors, Tiffany used to sift through the newspapers looking for negative articles about me. If she found any, she would try to hide them. Knowing what she was up to, I’d ask her to cut them out and put them up on the refrigerator. I often used doubt as motivation, whether I was in Salt Lake City or Boston. Tiffany was always supportive, and she never discouraged me from taking my case to Grady Little, Epstein, or even ownership if necessary.

  Fortunately, I had Pedro and Manny on my side. Pedro was incredible. When I talk to Tiffany now about the 2003 season, she says, “Thank you, Pedro Martínez.” She says that because she knows that he used his leverage to get me on the field. After one of his starts, against Philadelphia in June, when he pitched well and our unpredictable bullpen blew his lead on the way to a loss, he pulled me aside and told me he was taking me to dinner. He could see that I was angry about my uncertain status, and he wanted to cheer me up. We saw the end of the game in the clubhouse and then showered and dressed before the media entered to ask their questions about what had just happened. Pedro had decided, weeks earlier, not to speak regularly with reporters, and after that tough loss, I think there was media resentment that the starting pitcher wasn’t there to give his perspective on the game. There was resentment from some veterans on the team too. A rumor had started that we left the park before the game ended, which wasn’t true, and so some of the veterans viewed our absence as a lack of support for teammates who had lost a game and now had to answer for it without the starting pitcher. They took their complaints to the manager’s office.

  Once again, you have to weigh the politics of a baseball clubhouse. The veterans were mostly upset with Pedro, but he was the ace and just a handful of players were willing to criticize him. I was an easier target. I was new. My baseball résumé was light. And I was a part-timer. Pedro rushed into Little’s office when he found out that I had been scratched from the lineup as some type of punishment for leaving the ballpark while the game was still going on (which I hadn’t actually done).

  “If he doesn’t play when I’m pitching,” Pedro told the manager, “then I’m going to refuse to pitch. I want him out there. He’s a good hitter, and I want to win.”

  They didn’t have to listen to me. But Pedro? His opinions meant something, and if he wanted me to play when he pitched, that was the way it was going to be.

  When he wasn’t doing things like that at the park, he was treating Tiffany and me like family members when we were at his home. He lived in a Chestnut Hill mansion then, and whenever there was a weekend or early afternoon game, he’d invite us over to eat, listen to music, and watch movies. He knew our tastes, so there would be beans and rice for Tiffany and his sister would make goat for me. Sometimes the place was like a bustling day care center: our daughter, Pedro’s kids, his nieces and nephews, and Manny’s children would all be running around the huge basement at Pedro’s place. As much as getting on the field in Boston had been a struggle, I knew in New England that I had what felt like genuine relatives with Pedro, Manny, and their families.

  As the season progressed, both my playing time and my Boston education increased. I already mentioned that Pedro rarely talked with the media, and Manny didn’t either. Nomar Garciaparra was uncomfortable with the media attention, and he had been friendly with Ted Williams, another Red Sox superstar who had a strained relationship with most reporters. I’d heard stories about Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Rice and Roger Clemens, all Boston stars who had decided that they’d had enough of the people who were paid to write and talk about baseball. I wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the Boston media to identify the core of the problem. What was it about playing in Boston that made players so skeptical about what was being reported? I didn’t get it, and I was several years away from getting it. At the time I thought it was something I’d never have to worry about because I can get along with a variety of personality types. Also, I wasn’t perceived as the team spokesman then. When you’re one of the superstars, the expectation is that you’ll be there to answer for everything, even things that don’t directly involve you.

  None of that was on my mind as I sat in my hotel room. I wasn’t a star, but I was bearing a star’s burden that night. All I could think about was my game plan against Clemens, New York’s Game 7 starter. We had Pedro going for us, so I wasn’t worried about our pitching. What were we going to do, and what was I going to do in the final game of the series?

  On the day of the game I felt the pressure of the moment, but I wasn’t nervous. There’s a big difference between nerves and pressure. I liked the pressure. I liked the stage, especially in New York. It was strange to a lot of people, but my teammates could see how excited I would get if the
re was a situation in a game where we were tied or down by a run and I had a chance to win it. I always want that situation, and I thought Game 7 might provide it.

  I’d heard a lot of stories about Clemens and the legendary things he had accomplished in a dozen years playing for the Red Sox. He was 40 years old in 2003, and still one of the best pitchers in baseball. Our team matched up well against him, so I knew we’d be able to put together some good at-bats and get him out of the game early. That’s exactly what happened in the top of the fourth inning. Trot Nixon hit a home run off him in the second, and Kevin Millar homered in the fourth. We were ahead 4–0, and Clemens was done for the night. That was the good news. I’ll tell you what wasn’t good, though, at least not for me: seeing the next pitcher.

  It was Mike Mussina. In the first 20 at-bats of my career against Mussina, I didn’t get a hit. The more I faced him the more comfortable I started to get, but he’s one of the toughest pitchers I have ever faced. He threw 95 miles per hour, had great stuff, and had excellent location. I think he’s a Hall of Famer, for sure, and he pitched like it in Game 7. He gave the Yankees three innings of relief work and didn’t give up a run. He kept his team close when it felt like we had a chance to pile up a bunch of runs and make it an easy win.

  Pedro was pitching the way that I knew he would. Not only is he one of the most talented athletes to ever play baseball, he’s highly intelligent as well. He was a psychologist on the mound. He knew, based on their patterns, what hitters wanted to do, and so he would never give them a pitching pattern. He could master four pitches, at any time, so you never knew what to expect. I used to tell him that his brain was scary. On his off days, he was a student. He’d sit in the dugout watching to see what the opposing starter’s sequence was. If I sat next to him after my first at-bat, he could already tell me what was going to happen the rest of the game. For example, if a pitcher threw a great breaking ball for a strike and then didn’t throw it again, Pedro would identify that pitch as the weapon that the pitcher wanted to use in the next key situation. “The way he approached you in the first inning,” he’d say, “was only to get you later on. He’s trying to get you to chase so he doesn’t have to use his real good one until he needs it.” In the meantime, that pitcher would try to nibble, or make a batter get himself out. If he couldn’t do that and you got him to, say, a hitter’s count with a runner on base, the Pedro Theory was to look for the secret weapon on the next pitch. I hit many home runs due to the intelligence of Pedro.

  In Game 7, Pedro had pitched seven innings and allowed just two runs, a pair of Jason Giambi solo homers. As he left the mound at the end of the seventh, with a 4–2 lead, he pointed to the heavens and thanked God. We were six outs away from bringing the American League pennant to Boston for the first time in 18 years.

  The story got better in the top of the eighth. Mussina was out of the game, and the Yankees were on to their fifth pitcher of the night, David Wells. I knew what New York manager Joe Torre was trying to do. He started the eighth with reliever Jeff Nelson, a right-hander, to face Manny. Once Nelson got Manny to ground out, Torre called for Wells, a lefty, to get me. But I didn’t have a problem picking up the ball against any of the Yankee lefties, so I swung at the first pitch I saw from Wells. It soared over the right-field wall for a home run and a 5–2 lead.

  I didn’t realize it at the time, but what happened next would change my entire career. What happened next led to some revelations about the city in which I played and the kind of player I was going to become in that city. No question, we thought we were going to win the game. Pedro thought he had finished pitching for the night, but Grady Little asked him to go back out for the bottom of the eighth. That’s where the problems began. Pedro was able to get an out, but he gave up a double to Derek Jeter after getting two quick strikes on him. That wasn’t Pedro’s style, even against a great hitter like Jeter. If Pedro had you in a hole, his combination of brains and talent was usually too much for a hitter to overcome. The hit was a sign that Pedro was getting tired.

  When Bernie Williams singled to drive in Jeter and make the score 5–3, the stadium erupted to life. The crowd knew that this was the best chance the Yankees were going to have in what was left of the game, and so the stadium was as loud at that moment as I’d ever heard it. At that moment, Grady made his only mistake of the night, but it was a big one: he asked Pedro if he could stay in the game.

  You can’t ask an athlete that question. That’s like asking a hitter who is 0-for-20 against a pitcher, “Hey, do you want me to pinch-hit for you here?” What are you supposed to say? You always think you have a chance, and you’re not going to back down from a challenge. The only thing to do is take it out of the athlete’s hands and make the decision for him.

  Pedro stayed in the game. Even though he was still throwing hard, the at-bats from the Yankees became tougher. By the time the eighth inning was over, Pedro was out of the game and a 5–2 lead for us had become a 5–5 tie. I couldn’t believe it, after we had controlled most of the game. It reached its worst point in the bottom of the 11th inning, when Aaron Boone ended our season with a home run to left field off Tim Wakefield.

  I was sick. Too sick to be angry. Too sick to be analytical. Too sick to immediately replay, step by step, what had gone wrong in the game. I know a lot of longtime Boston fans thought that the team was cursed, that somehow that was the reason for the loss. I didn’t think like that, and neither did any of my teammates. We knew that there was nothing mysterious about beating the Yankees and that we had been in position to do it. Until that eighth inning.

  When that home run in the 11th started to rise toward left field, it felt like it hung there forever. I kept hoping that a sudden wind would knock it down, or that it would take a hard left turn and go foul.

  I was drained, and so was our team. Our normal clubhouse had a loud, unrestrained spirit to it. On that night, we were the quietest club in all of New York City. We slowly faced the finality of our season. We were not preparing to play the Florida Marlins in the World Series. We were just going home.

  I still didn’t get it then. I had no idea that the New England fans were as hungry as they were, that they felt the pain of the loss just like we did. I had never seen so much passion from fans in my career. When I got back to Boston, I could see how crushed everyone was. My neighbors, postal workers, people at the grocery store, newscasters. I saw the sadness on all of those faces, and that’s when I finally understood what Boston was about and who I was playing for. I was devastated, and so were they. I knew then that I was going to work harder than I ever had in my career. We had to win, for us and for them. I never wanted to see faces that sad again.

  6

  The New Red Sox

  My wife knows more than anyone just how restless my off-season nights used to be.

  Sometimes she would find me awake and thinking about future at-bats when I should have been asleep. There in the dark, I’d think about all the pitchers I was likely to face the next season and in the playoffs. I didn’t just want to know every pitch they threw; I wanted to anticipate the exact moments when they would want to throw them. I wanted all the information I could get. The separation between us and the Yankees was slim, so slim that winning the pennant might come down to the recognition of a single pitch.

  To learn those kinds of details, I would need to do extra video work. And then there would also have to be a disciplined running, stretching, and lifting program. I couldn’t wait until spring training, or even Thanksgiving, to accomplish all of that. Everywhere I went, I could feel and hear the frustrations of Red Sox fans. What I loved about them was that they wanted the same thing I did—greatness and a championship. They talked about it all the time, and I thought about it all the time, so we were the perfect match. I was willing to sacrifice sleep and a relaxing vacation to get there.

  It didn’t matter that our season had been over for two weeks. I still couldn’t stop myself from considering all the things I needed to do to help
us be at least one game, or one pitch, better than the Yankees. Tiffany would tell people that I worked harder than anyone she’d ever met, but she still wanted me to slow down.

  “What are you doing awake?” she would sleepily ask. My reply was always the same: “I’m getting ahead of the game.” In reality, I don’t think I ever felt like I got ahead at all. I just didn’t want to be playing catchup in February.

  I never imagined that in late October 2003 someone would already be ahead of me. I never imagined that my own team would be far more anxious and active than I was. The Game 7 loss to the Yankees had torn me up, knowing that we were just five outs away from going to the World Series. Anytime I got close to contentment, I’d feel the sting of that loss. I’d remember the extended roar of Yankee Stadium after they tied the score at 5 in the eighth, how the park seemed to shake when they won it in the 11th with that Aaron Boone home run, and how quiet that short plane ride back to Boston had been. Those memories always pushed me to work overtime.

  The Red Sox had already begun making their moves with two quick ones that led to what was about to become a parade of transactions. One of them, I thought, was a mistake. The other one was simply a power move to get a player’s attention.

  A week and a half after the letdown in New York, the Red Sox decided against bringing back Grady Little as manager. I thought they were crazy. He made one mistake, and it was like ownership took it personally. That shows how much I know.

  I thought he should have gotten a contract extension. Everyone could see that Grady stayed with Pedro Martínez too long against the Yankees, but I think more people should have pointed out that he was putting his faith in the best pitcher in baseball. Our bullpen had been great in the postseason, but what would have been said if Grady had taken out Pedro and the bullpen had given it up? Why’d you take Pedro out and put that guy in? Grady was a great communicator, and he didn’t always make his decisions based on statistics or matchups. The principal team owners, John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino, didn’t like that about him. Neither did Theo Epstein, the general manager. I learned during the season that there were also things that Grady didn’t like about them. They were often stat-driven when it came to the game, while he relied on his experience in clubhouses and dugouts. His focus was on relationships. He wanted to run the team his way, and he thought Theo and ownership liked to meddle.