So, when Ben Padanilam suggested yesterday in this space that David Ortiz, who will be playing his last season in 2016, deserves fanfare similar to that of other accomplished athletes who announced retirements prior to their final seasons in recent years, he unmasked a crippling apprehension implanted in me in mid-November when Ortiz announced this upcoming campaign would be the end of the line for him.
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“These are good guys, I feel so bad for them, ” Ortiz told USA Today. Hanigan has been helping the young Red Sox catchers – Blake Swihart and Christian Vazquez, who are vying for the starter’s job – get accustomed to catching Price. There is still a jagged hole in the concrete in the bowels of the Stadium behind home plate where the Yankees dug up an Ortiz jersey in 2008 that was buried there during construction by a Red Sox fan.
An approaching storm cast a set of dark clouds over the training facility and a stiff wind hit Fort Myers Wednesday morning as the Red Sox began full-squad workouts. It has taken a lot away from me to continue to be a guy at that level. “I really appreciate the fact that my name gets caught into the mix with those legends that are going to be there as long as the baseball game is”.
The most anticipated victory lap around major league ballparks for the 2016 season got underway Monday. Those guys have the tools and the ability to play the game and just the focused part of it, you’ve got to be focused. Its just time to do different things. NOTES: RHP Koji Uehara was back on the field after being sidelined with a sinus infection…. Is he going to be in the food room when I walk in there?
We’ll see how they respond. Shoot, I remember he was struggling with popups one day and he stayed out there an hour with the machine hitting popups, now he’s one of the best in baseball at popups. Sometimes you can’t live up to them and you have to try to be yourself.
During Derek Jeter’s and Mariano Rivera’s farewell tours, Red Sox fans gave them their respect by standing and cheering for both during their final trips to Fenway, so Red Sox fans will argue that it is only fair that Yankee fans in the Bronx do the same for Ortiz. “I’m a player that never forgot about that”. He enters this season, his 14th with the Red Sox, with 503 home runs, 27th on the career list and third among active players behind Alex Rodriguez with (687) and Albert Pujols (560).
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“He’s in great shape”, manager John Farrell told MLB.com. Or maybe the better way to say that is he didn’t let the moment take him out of his own game.
