by David Ortiz
As expected, the parade was memorable. My only regret is that I didn’t record it. This is going to sound silly, but I didn’t know there were so many people in New England. The crowd estimate was 3.2 million. All I can tell you is that the only land I saw was the road the Duck Boats drove on. Otherwise, it was people. Everywhere. They seemed to be piled on top of each other. I tried to wave to everyone, which was impossible. I saw dozens of signs from men and women and boys and girls, of all shapes and sizes and colors. They had pictures of their deceased relatives, with tributes. I saw thousands and thousands of smiles, as well as some tears of joy.
I had promised myself that I would never forget the long faces of defeat after the 2003 loss to New York. I’ll never forget the 2004 parade faces either. They were the people who had scheduled their summers around Red Sox games and were always hopeful that there would be playoff games in the fall. I was glad to see them finally get the reward. It’s always nice to see a crowd having a good time, and that’s all the entire day was about. When the Duck Boats got into the water, there were fans waving on a bridge above the Charles River, and there were even some who jumped in to swim after the boats. I’m not much of a sailor, but I got behind the wheel of the boat and steered for a while.
It would have spoiled the day if we had announced that it was going to be our last time together as a team. But that’s exactly what it was: a team breakup party, and one that happened to have a championship trophy along for the ride.
New England felt entitled to that trophy, so it went on tour for the rest of the year. It made several stops around the region and even made it to the Dominican. That was the positive news. Unfortunately, Mets general manager Omar Minaya had made it there before the trophy. He was visiting Pedro, and he asked him directly what it would take to get him on the Mets. Pedro told him that his desire was to stay in Boston. For the Mets to have a chance, their deal needed to be four years guaranteed. They shook hands and said they had a deal, contingent on Boston having an opportunity to match it.
It was going to be the kind of contract that the Red Sox believed they couldn’t match. Pedro, five years older than me, felt he couldn’t pass it up. It could well turn out to be the last contract of his career, so he had to take the best deal. With all the focus on Pedro, Lowe signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in a much quieter departure.
The 2005 season was going to be strange at work with no Lowe and no Pedro, but as Tiffany pointed out to me, it was going to be even worse at home. Just like everyone else, we admired Pedro the player. But we loved the person even more. Pedro was still family, of course. Just a family member who was leaving Boston for New York.
9
Life After the Series
The words from my agent were clear and to the point.
“If you wait one more year and go to free agency,” he said, “I can easily get you a $100 million contract. There’s always going to be a market for a guy like you.”
It was early 2005, and we were the defending World Series champions. It was the perfect time to be associated with the Red Sox. That’s why there were books, movies, documentaries, and TV shows devoted to the team. It’s why the owners excitedly shared their plans to update Fenway Park: new restaurants, new seats in left and right fields, new office space. It’s why fans constantly competed to buy the most expensive tickets in baseball, in person and online, guaranteeing another full season of a sold-out Fenway. In my agent’s opinion, it was my time to strategize, be patient, and wait for that $100 million windfall.
I was tempted.
I was already outperforming my contract, and my agent knew that it wouldn’t be long before the Red Sox started talking about an extension. It would be good business for them, a move that would help them avoid competing for free agents who were commanding spiraling salaries. I was entering my third season with the Red Sox, and I had already seen my share of contract disputes. When I got to town, Nomar Garciaparra was the organization’s most important homegrown superstar. He was gone just over a year later after the team presented him with a $60 million contract offer, withdrew it, and eventually traded him. Pedro was one of the best pitchers in Red Sox and baseball history. He got the contract he deserved in free agency, but he had to go to the Mets to get it. Derek Lowe and Orlando Cabrera, two clutch players in October, were off to other teams. And one of the cofounders of The Idiots, Johnny Damon, was in the final year of his contract and unsure if his future was in Boston or elsewhere.
For me, someone who grew up in a family that struggled to earn money, I looked at it this way: if I couldn’t make it with the $65 million over five years that the Red Sox eventually offered, I wasn’t going to make it with $100 million either. That’s not to say I didn’t want more money, or didn’t think I deserved it. I understood how much I had done for the Red Sox and how much they had done for me. I didn’t think it was the time to be gauging my market value. I knew I’d be able to take care of my wife and kids forever, and extending my Red Sox contract would remove any negotiating worries during the season. What I didn’t immediately realize, though, was how much my life had changed.
One of the many things I love about Tiffany is that she’s never wanted anyone to do for her what she can do for herself. She values being low-key and as normal as possible. You’ll never see her with a nanny to look after the kids and shuttle them to their activities. She’s always been the one to do that, and she likes it that way. Fame was something that sneaked up on both of us, and we weren’t all that prepared for it.
We had moved to a house in Newton, right in the center of town, and our address had been listed in the city’s free newspaper. After all the big hits and the World Series, we noticed more and more cars driving ever so slowly by the house. Sometimes people would pull over and point. It was like we were an unofficial stop on the Duck Boat tour. Just after the Series, on Halloween, we passed out candy to the neighborhood kids. Several days later, we’d still have people knocking on the door with late trick-or-treat requests . . . or just to say hello.
We couldn’t be anonymous like we were when we first met, nearly ten years earlier. For that matter, we couldn’t be anything like we were when we first moved to Boston just two years earlier. We were in a position that we’d never thought of before: How were we going to raise our kids, and spend our time, as a celebrity family? The question itself would have been a joke in Minnesota. Celebrity? No one at the bar across the street from the Metrodome looked at me like that. No one thought about where I lived, what kind of opinions I had, and which social event I’d attended. There, ESPN wasn’t wondering if we could tape a commercial, and the late-night talk shows didn’t ask about my availability. Fans in New England are passionate about athletes, especially the stars, and now I was considered one of them. A star. It was fine with me, although I was warned that stardom would include not just more visibility, endorsements, and commercials but also consequences.
Manny pulled me aside and told me about being a great player in Boston. “Papi, once you put up unbelievable numbers here, people will never let you change the menu,” he said. “You’ll always be expected to give them exactly what you’ve given before.”
It would be several years before I could truly appreciate the wisdom of what he’d said. In 2005, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about my numbers falling off. I’d trained hard in the off-season again. I was more knowledgeable about studying pitchers and their tendencies. I’ve always been big with natural strength, but all the hard workers on the Red Sox inspired me to spend more time in the weight room. I was so mindful of nutrition that I hired a chef just to prepare lunch for me. The year before, I was trying to prove that I could help us win the Series. This year I knew we could win, so the motivation was to win back-to-back.
On the sunny and cool afternoon of our home opener, I was ready for the challenge. I looked around and saw that we were surrounded by some of the most dominant athletes in the history of their sports. As part of our championship gala, the Red Sox had invite
d local icons, like Bill Russell, Bobby Orr, and Tedy Bruschi, to celebrate with us, but there were also the legends in the visitors’ dugout that day. I’m talking about the Yankees. As we received our rings, many Yankees players either applauded us or tipped their caps. I was inspired by the class and dignity many of them showed that day.
It didn’t surprise me that the one Yankee who most won over the crowd was Mariano Rivera. When his name was announced, the Fenway fans erupted in applause. It was as if they were teasing him, affectionately, and saying thanks for helping us stay alive in the playoffs. Mariano flashed a big smile when he heard the cheers, and the Boston fans loved him for it.
I’m telling you, I couldn’t have more respect for someone as a player and as a man than I do for Mariano. When I made my first All-Star Game, in 2004, I remember watching him walk through the clubhouse. I viewed him as royalty, but he was so friendly and humble. Anytime he took the mound, he made you appreciate what a talented and smart pitcher he was. For most pitchers, the contact point is out in front of the hitter, where you can see the baseball. For Mariano, the contact point is on your hands. Here’s the best way I can describe it: When you’re left-handed and standing in the box against Mariano, the baseball makes a big right turn when it comes out of his hand and sometimes the ball is invisible. You see nothing. Then suddenly the ball is right there on your hands. He threw that one pitch, the cutter, but he could do all kinds of things with it, throwing to both lefties and righties. I can tell you now that I used to choke way up on the bat when facing Mariano, just to have a chance of getting a hit.
I learned a lot about believing in myself by watching Mariano. At the beginning of the 2005 season, his velocity was down for some reason, and he had begun to throw changeups and other pitches. Then he must have looked in the mirror one day and asked himself what he was thinking. He went back to the cutter and started dominating again. The lesson there, for me, was to not get too down when going through a hitting slump. To remember who I am and what I do best. Great players need those pick-me-ups too. Once you get to a certain level of achievement, your teammates, coaches, and manager often assume that there’s nothing they can tell you to help you. They think you can figure it out on your own. At times, what you need is a simple reminder that you’re good and that the skills that made you that way are still in place.
A lot of people wondered if the New England fans’ appetite for the Red Sox would shrink after we won the World Series, but I didn’t notice it. I could still feel the thick baseball obsession that I loved, at home and on the road. The usual game-by-game scrutiny from the media and fans was still there. But our team, although good, wasn’t the same. At the beginning of the year, Curt Schilling wasn’t available because of right ankle surgery, and with Pedro and Derek Lowe no longer on the team, that meant that our top two starters along with our number five were gone. The back of our bullpen was different as well. Keith Foulke had done everything right during his first year in Boston. In year two, he didn’t look and sound like the same pitcher. He struggled as our closer, and the commentaries from Fenway fans seemed to get under his skin.
I’ve said it before: playing for the Red Sox isn’t for everybody. You’ve got to have the ability and desire to turn negatives into positives, because the atmosphere is often pessimistic. I liked it when the media told me that I couldn’t do something, because I always wanted to come back, prove them wrong, and tell them to shut the hell up. Sometimes I’d say it with more color and nastiness than that. There was nothing they could say or do to intimidate me. I chose to keep things in perspective. I grew up in a neighborhood in Haina where there was a shooting almost every day. Was I going to get shot playing baseball? No. My life was good, even if I went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. That’s just me. Foulke wasn’t like that, and neither was our new shortstop, Edgar Rentería. He took some criticism for the way he played, and some for who he wasn’t. Cabrera had brought flash and stability to short, and the fans quickly took to his style; Rentería mostly looked uncomfortable. There’s no way you can play baseball in Boston—or anywhere—if you give the fans and media power over your performance.
Overall, the year felt strange. From a fan standpoint, there were many reasons to complain about that season. But for the first time in many of their lives, they couldn’t link any of our problems to a curse from generations ago. We had won it, so all the talk about the Red Sox not getting it done in the clutch was old and tired. We had trashed that way of thinking with our comeback. We did have some problems, though. Some of them were obvious to me, and others I didn’t realize until the season was over. Many championship teams had probably had the same issues we had on the field and in the clubhouse. Guys playing for contracts and wanting more playing time. Somebody being unhappy with their role. Or someone underachieving and losing their everyday job.
I was friends with everyone, so it was hard to see some of the battles. Kevin Millar had been great for us in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, a first baseman named John Olerud started to take some of his playing time. Mark Bellhorn had been our second baseman in 2004, and he’d come up with some key hits. But his strikeouts started to matter more than his on-base capability, so Tony Graffanino and Alex Cora took some of his playing time. Johnny Damon was still playing hard, playing hurt, and giving his entire body to the game. But no one talked contract with him for 2006, even though he desperately wanted to be back. In June, after the amateur draft, there was talk that the team had drafted Johnny’s replacement. The kid, from Oregon State, was named Jacoby Ellsbury.
I wish I could say that one thing that remained unchanged was the middle-of-the-lineup power that Manny and I provided. That was half true. There was not a combination like us in baseball, and in any game we knew it was only a matter of time before a pitcher was hurt by one of us, if not both. The problem was that Manny’s relationship with management, which had been up and down for years, was down again. I was convinced that he was doing things so they would be forced to trade him. He wouldn’t show up when they wanted him to. He didn’t always run hard when they wanted him to. Once, Tito asked him to change his off day because Trot Nixon couldn’t play, and Manny refused.
Part of it was that Red Sox thing I’ve described. Some players felt suffocated from all the attention. Manny was living downtown at the time, next to a sports club, and he complained about all the people he had to go through just to go outside. Now, you could ask, “Why didn’t he just move somewhere else?” That’s a good question. But that wasn’t Manny. I think he just wanted a change of scenery, and the Red Sox wanted to give it to him. But by July, they still hadn’t found a deal that made sense for them.
Manny stayed, and we put up some incredible numbers, numbers that actually had several voters saying that I could be MVP of the league. I had 47 home runs, 40 doubles, and 148 runs batted in. Manny’s numbers were similar in those same categories: 45, 30, and 144. But another player who was having a strong season was Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees had begun the season 11–19, but they’d cleaned themselves up and gotten into position to win the division in the final series of the regular season. That series was against us, at Fenway.
We needed to sweep them to win the division outright. Instead, we won two out of three and finished with 95 wins, the same as the Yankees. But they became American League East champs when they won the tiebreaker. At least we were headed to the playoffs. And if finishing with the same number of wins was the worst thing that happened to us in 2005, we would be all right. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the low point of the season. Not even close.
10
In and Out Red Sox
It barely counted as a playoff run, especially after what we had been through the previous two years. We had become known for keeping New England fans awake deep into October with our dramatic baseball games. Night after night. Series after series. Whether we took on the A’s or Angels, the Yankees or Cardinals, it was hard to predict what we’d do next.
Until we played the Chicago White Sox in 20
05. We didn’t go on a long playoff run at all. Instead, we had a short week, and a bad one at that. We lost our first playoff game 14–2. They had a five-run first inning in Game 1, and a five-run fifth inning in Game 2. In Game 3, at Fenway, they beat us another way. They turned the game over to their bullpen for the final four innings and held us to two hits in that span.
Just like that, we were swept out of the playoffs.
The abrupt finish was a good reminder of the kind of business I was in. It’s risky to be a long-range planner in any major league city. It’s even riskier to do it in the big markets like Boston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I felt blessed to be married to a woman who instinctively understood that every year either we might have to pack up and go or our friends on the team would have to do it. I didn’t think I was going to be traded, but Tiffany’s view of things was a good one: be adaptable and ready for anything. From afar, it might seem strange that a so-called superstar would have that view. But I didn’t think of myself that way. When I was out in public, I loved the attention, the kind words, signing things for people, taking pictures, and making little kids smile. I also cherished being at home and doing things with the family. I wasn’t Papi to them. I think we all kept each other grounded.
Besides, honestly, I was still in awe of things that more experienced stars were used to. I’d never been highly recruited, I’d never made a lot of money, and I’d never been swarmed on the street while taking a walk. I’d been in the big leagues for years and that had never happened. Then, overnight, it did. It blew my mind. I still couldn’t believe some of the things that had happened as a result of the Series win. I was originally booked to go on Jimmy Kimmel’s show on ABC, but then NBC and The Tonight Show wanted me to go on with them instead. NBC and ABC competing for me to come on with them. It got so crazy that Jay Leno made a personal call to one of my agents, saying it would be cool if I came on with him. A personal call from Leno? Get the hell out of here! That was nuts.