Papi

by David Ortiz

  Our manager, though, couldn’t help himself. He kept getting in the way.

  The simplest way I can put it is that he didn’t treat people well. That’s what it came down to. He dismissed anyone who he thought was beneath him. He didn’t get a chance to hire all his own coaches, and I think he held it against the coaches themselves. We had a bench coach named Tim Bogar. He was an intelligent guy, and I really liked him. He tried to give Bobby a scouting report on a player, and Bobby just tore into him for no reason. The point was to work as a team and help each other get better, but that was missing from him. He even called a meeting, with the entire team, and accused his coaches of backstabbing him.

  Another time, when we were playing the Cubs in Chicago, his target was Melancon. It wasn’t as bad as the way he attacked Aviles, but it was close. Melancon hadn’t pitched well, and as usual, Bobby overreacted to something that a player hadn’t done on purpose. Bobby played in the majors. He should have known. Did he really think a guy wanted to perform poorly? Did he believe his screaming and sarcasm would make things better? I remember seeing Melancon’s face afterward, and it was tomato red. I felt so bad for the kid. I pulled him aside and told him that he was a great pitcher and not to be discouraged by Bobby. I needed him to know that this experience was the exception and that the best baseball teams didn’t operate this way. I could see what was happening. Melancon would be a good closer for someone, but never for Bobby Valentine.

  Eventually, in July, we all collapsed.

  For me, it started with an injury. Despite the instability in my life and in the clubhouse, I was having a great season at the plate. I had made my third straight All-Star Game after being called washed up in 2009 and 2010. The advice from González on how to approach lefties was continuing to pay off, and for the second year in a row my average was higher against them than against righties. It was a good time to be in a contract year. About a week after the All-Star Game, at home against the White Sox, González hit a home run and I was on base. As I made the turn at second, I felt a shot in my right foot. It was a pain so sharp that as I got to third I was convinced that I’d torn something. Later I was told that I’d been fortunate. I had almost torn my Achilles tendon. The doctors said it would be wise to sit out for a while.

  In the meantime, my teammates fought on without me on the field and fought against Bobby off of it. There was a meeting with ownership in New York to get him fired. He was terrible, and everyone knew it. Even the owners. Many of the veterans agreed that we had never before seen the type of drama that Bobby provoked. But we were told that no changes would be made until the end of the year.

  As a man who made a living as a hitter, it was hard to watch my team struggle offensively in my absence. I was rehabbing and trying my best to get back and help us. I felt guilty for watching my boys and not being able to pitch in and get it done. They needed me. I was out 35 games and we went 13–22 in that span. I couldn’t make it 36 straight games.

  I went to Bobby, not the trainers, and told him that I wanted to be out there. I told him that I was no better than 60 percent, and that while I couldn’t run the bases, I felt I could jog around them. I knew what the risks were, but I didn’t care. I wanted to try. I told Bobby that I wanted to be activated and that he could count on me in the lineup.

  Bobby said he appreciated the effort, and he put me in the lineup against Kansas City. My first at-bat I got a hit. My second at-bat I hit a ball to the gap. I was jogging at my 60 percent and watching Jeff Francoeur, who was playing right field. He was a strong-armed outfielder, and I was between first and second. If I continued to jog, he would have me out easily. I sped up in an attempt to reach second quickly, and I felt that same pull that I’d felt a month earlier. I knew then that my season was over, and I thought Bobby understood why. I’d learn later, in a jaw-dropping way, that it was just the opposite.

  My season wasn’t the only one that was over: the Red Sox careers of González, Beckett, and Crawford were finished the next day. In one of the biggest trades in baseball history, those players and Nick Punto were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for role players and prospects. It was the Red Sox’s way of saying that they wanted to reset and start over. In any other year, the trade would have blown everyone away in the clubhouse, but people had no idea just how much we had seen since the spring. It made sense that the season would be punctuated in such an unusual way.

  I had no guesses about the future and what it held for me. My marriage was dissolving. My team had finished dead last in the division for the first time in 20 years. I was a free agent. And I was hurt. I thought that I would never have to hear from Bobby Valentine again after ownership waited just one day before firing a guy they should never have hired. The biggest surprise to me was not that they hired him. It was that he made it a whole year without someone punching him out.

  Of course, Bobby didn’t know how to leave town quietly.

  I’d heard that he was going to be on TV with Bob Costas, talking about his time in Boston and other things. I was curious. I watched the whole thing and was shocked when I saw him tell Costas that I had quit on him and the Red Sox. All season long, I was the one who had defended him, who had tried to have his back, even when it was an unpopular stance to take as far as my teammates were concerned. But it was the right thing to do, and now he had the balls to go on national TV and suggest that I quit?

  I couldn’t grab the remote fast enough. I was talking to myself. This motherfucker . . . I needed to rewind just to be sure he said what I thought he said. Before I could even rewind, I had reporters texting and calling, asking what I thought of his comments.

  Much later, days later, he tried to call me and apologize. I didn’t want to hear it. People had called me and warned me about him, but I had tried at every step to prop him up. Then he went on national TV and did that shit to me? That’s when you know someone is a bad person. He is a bad person. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s what I think he is. A bad human being. I’m the one who had his back, out of everybody. And then he said I quit? That was fucked up.

  By that time, we had made a trade with Toronto to bring back John Farrell to be our new manager. I knew him, kind of. Farrell had been our pitching coach when we won the World Series in 2007. I had spent a little time with him, but I didn’t know him as well as the pitchers did. This is what I did know: when we traded for him, no one called or texted to say “good luck.” I figured we were in good hands.

  17

  This Is Our F’in City

  I looked around our clubhouse, reading the faces of players and staff alike, and noticed something that had not been there in over a year. There was trust in the room. There was peace and respect. There was a new manager who had no interest in making himself the star.

  When John Farrell talked with us in Fort Myers for the first time in February 2013, he didn’t waste a lot of time recapping the craziness and disappointment of the last-place 2012 season. He made eye contact with some of the players he had won a title with in his first stint with the Red Sox. He looked at me, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, and Jacoby Ellsbury. We had all been there in Denver in October 2007, the night we won the World Series. That was the night we took over the Palm Restaurant, sharing laughs and stories and drinks. The musical group Maroon 5 just happened to be there, and they decided to join us and give an impromptu acoustic performance. That’s how a season is supposed to end. Love, fun, music, a raised trophy, and raised glasses.

  Farrell wanted to know if that spirit was still in the room in 2013. He had arrived with a reputation as a good and direct communicator, and I could see why. I liked the way he spoke. He never tried to bullshit us. He was a smart man, but not the type trying to prove that he was smarter than you. He was the opposite of Bobby Valentine. He told us that he could sense that we were a hardworking team, and that he had not returned to nitpick and bust balls.

  “You guys are adults,” he said. “You know what you should and shouldn’t be doing. I’m
here to be a part of the solution, to get us back to where we belong.”

  He knew he didn’t have to say much more than that. The chemistry that we had was incredible, even before our first full-squad workout. We were the perfect mix of talented, hungry, and a little pissed off. All of us had either been called out, overlooked, or flat-out given up on the previous year.

  There was still a backlash against the pitching staff because of chicken, beer, and the September collapse of 2011. Fans were angry with Lester, Buchholz, and Lackey. Ellsbury had been hurt in 2012 after missing most of 2010 with an injury. Some fans were down on Pedroia for being critical of Bobby. Even our new players, guys like Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, and Jonny Gomes, were undervalued and believed they had something to prove.

  For me, the biggest on-field issue was the pain in my right Achilles. The injury I got in July 2012 and reaggravated in August was bad, and it could have been worse if it hadn’t been for a man who saved my career. His name was Dan Dyrek, a physical therapist who had worked with Larry Bird when he played for the Celtics. The good news for me was that Dan came to the Dominican in the off-season and educated me about my feet. He told me everything about my Achilles and how I would feel during certain stages of rehab, and gave me exercises I needed to do to get myself back on the field. Dan was so knowledgeable about me that my feet got happy when he was around. Besides God, the person most responsible for preserving my career was Dan.

  Unfortunately, I would not be able to play with my teammates until Dan and I felt that my Achilles was completely healed. That meant no opening day, but it did not mean I couldn’t hang out with these guys. I wasn’t sure how good the team would be, but I knew I had never been a part of something like this. These dudes loved baseball. I had never seen a team that, to a man, sat around and talked about the game so much. One of the cool things they would do was talk about pitching during the game. If one of our hitters got fooled, many players would watch video together to figure out how it happened.

  It was a close and passionate team. Funny too. One of the new pitchers was Ryan Dempster, a veteran pitcher who also liked to dabble in stand-up comedy. One of the characters he played for us was a “jock” named Jack Hammer. Dempster would put on his cleats, pull his red baseball socks up to his knees, and wear a jock strap with no pants over it. Then he would give his baseball observations as Mr. Hammer. It was silly, but it was yet another reason for us to hang around the park and talk and laugh together.

  I think our identity was set in the first game of the season. Opening at Yankee Stadium, we began the season aggressively. Lester attacked the Yankees with first-pitch strikes, we took extra bases, we showed our toughness by driving in two-out runs, and we were never afraid to celebrate when someone did something—anything, really—positive.

  Going into our annual Patriots’ Day game on the Monday of the Boston Marathon, we were 7–4. One of the many traditions I looked forward to in Boston was Marathon Monday. It was a Massachusetts holiday, and it often seemed like an all-day party. There was no school for kids, so you’d see families spending time together watching the Marathon. People would do all sorts of generous things for the runners, from holding signs to giving out cups of water to cheering and clapping for those who needed extra motivation. Everything about the day was special, including our game, which always started at 11:00 a.m.

  I may not remember the game details of April 15, 2013, but I’ll remember the rest of that day as long as I live. We finished a three-game sweep of Tampa just after 2:00. Shortly after the players walked off the field and into the clubhouse, one of the sweetest sights could be seen on the Fenway lawn. The organization allowed parents and their children to leap the gates and run the bases at the park. It was a simple thing, but you could see and feel the joy in those kids, many of them surely pretending that they’d be in the big leagues one day.

  My teammates were preparing for a trip to Cleveland to play the Indians, but I wasn’t traveling with them. My plan was to stay home and rehab so I could be ready to start my season when the team returned to Fenway four days later. Staying in New England rather than taking that trip to Ohio changed me. Those four days told me a lot about where I lived, and just how deep my connection was to the city that adopted me.

  By the time players left the park for the airport, everyone had heard the devastating news. Two bombs had exploded, 12 seconds apart, on Boylston Street, near the Marathon finish line. It was an act of terrorism, and at the time no one had any idea who was responsible for it. The blasts caused some horrific injuries, with hundreds of men, women, and children losing limbs and having shrapnel embedded in their skin. Three people, including an eight-year-old boy, were killed. Some of the sidewalks in the Back Bay were covered with blood. Everyone at the finish line—from doctors to law enforcement officials to everyday citizens—was scrambling to save and protect lives. Some of the people who were in the race ran into stores and grabbed shirts or anything they could use as tourniquets in attempts to help those who were badly bleeding.

  Each time I heard a report from the scene, I became sick. And yet I kept listening. I was confused by everything I’d seen and heard. I kept asking myself, Why would someone do this? What kind of psychopath would do something like this? The Marathon represents everything good about New England. It’s the community coming out for something positive and supporting one another. It’s support for some people you know and mostly people you don’t know. The more I listened the more obvious it seemed that someone intentionally caused this destruction.

  It was hard to think about anything else that night, and the next night too. I remember seeing a picture of Martin Richard, that little eight-year-old boy. In the picture, he’s smiling, exposing a missing tooth, and holding a sign that reads, no more hurting people. peace. He’d drawn two hearts and a symbol for peace on the sign. I thought of how terrible things must have been for his family. My son was eight too, so the targeted casualties truly hit home for me.

  Our organization acted quickly. We put a “617” jersey in the dugout, for the area code of Boston, and we began connecting ourselves to the phrase “Boston Strong.” We were determined to reach out to, raise funds for, and inspire individuals and groups affected by the bombing. It was a start, but there was so much work to do. And in the first few days, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, no one knew who was to blame.

  That all started to change on Thursday. I was at home watching TV, freaking out and getting angry, just like everyone else in New England. The terrorists had been identified through surveillance video: two brothers, one 19 and the other 26, who had spent many years living on Norfolk Street in Cambridge. I couldn’t understand how anyone could do that at the Marathon, especially someone who had grown up two miles away from the finish line.

  I spent all day Thursday and Friday overcome with emotion. Maybe I would have still felt things that intensely if I had been in Cleveland with the team, but I doubt it. I did not have the mental escape of doing my job and focusing on something else. No, I was at my house, internalizing the sadness and disbelief of the city. These events were happening in our city, the city that had embraced me, and not that far from where I had worked and lived for the past decade.

  On Thursday night, the terrorists killed an MIT police officer on Vassar Street in Cambridge, about a mile and a half from Fenway. They also stole a man’s car and held him hostage until he escaped and notified police of the terrorists’ plan to go to New York and cause more damage. Early Friday morning, in Watertown, there was a shootout between the terrorists and the police. One of the bombers was killed after the confrontation with police, and one was still at large.

  It was Friday morning and I was supposed to be playing my first game of the season that night against the Kansas City Royals. But I didn’t want to play. I wanted justice. The only way baseball or anything else could be relevant at that time was if it was attached to a plan to help and heal Boston. If it didn’t do that, in my opinion, it didn’t matter. I had the TV
on all day, hopeful that the region could get some good news after a terrible week. The governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, shut down all public transportation and asked all residents to stay in their houses so officials could have a better chance of catching the terrorist. Our game, thankfully, was canceled. The entire region, and country, turned its attention to catching the bomber. Thank God, on Friday night they arrested him. I was happy to see people lining the streets of Watertown, applauding the officers for their important and heroic work.

  On Saturday morning, my body felt fine but my soul was heavy. I thought of all the people who’d just wanted to have a happy day and instead were attacked with crude pressure-cooker bombs, packed with nails and metal. I thought of all the people who’d been frightened by what they’d seen and heard and were afraid to leave the house, afraid to send their kids to school, afraid of living. I thought of being an American citizen first, not just a baseball player, and our responsibility to abide by the rules of the country and to protect it.

  I was on edge. I knew that week was going to be with all of us forever. As we prepared for the game, I was asked to say a few words on behalf of the players and the team. It was a special day at Fenway, with many of the heroes of the past week present. These were the people who literally were on the ground, saving lives. They were the spine of the city, with their strength and selflessness. I was proud to wear a white home jersey that day with BOSTON printed in red block letters. I saw my friend Tom Menino there. He was the mayor of Boston, and we had hit it off when I first met him. He had the city in his blood, and when he’d first met me ten years earlier, he could sense that I cared about helping people. Governor Patrick was there as well, along with dozens of officers, EMTs, and Marathon bombing survivors. I wished I could have personally hugged and thanked all of them. I knew I wanted to say something as I held that microphone, but I wasn’t sure what it was going to be. I didn’t have a script. I just wanted to speak from the heart.