David Ortiz gave everything he had to the city of Boston.
The Red Sox legend was a 10-time All-Star, seven-time Silver Slugger, and won three World Series in Boston during his Hall of Fame career.
Ortiz talked about his love for Boston while appearing on Audacy’s original “The Bret Boone Podcast” this week, saying that he wishes he could give even more back to the city.
“The city of Boston is something that in my life in general has been a game-changer. I wish I can give them more than what I already did because that city made me a better player, a better person,” Ortiz said (57:35 in player above). “It basically got me better at everything.”
Ortiz started his major-league career in Minnesota where he spent parts of six seasons with the Twins. He emerged in 2002 with 20 home runs for the first time in his career, and he was only getting started.
That offseason, Ortiz signed in Boston, but he didn’t necessarily know what he was getting himself into just yet.
“It was the type of commitment that you don’t know if you’re going to walk into a commitment like that until you’re in the middle,” he said. “Sometimes that’s what I try to tell young players nowadays. You don’t know who you are getting married to until 10 years later.”
While Ortiz wasn’t sure what he was committing to in Boston back in 2003, he couldn’t be happier 20 years later.
“I’m married to that city in the type of way that I can never let them down, even now that I’m retired because they embrace me like that and I don’t even know that I was walking into that game,” Ortiz said. “But I love it and whatever I can do for that city or for any city in the United States, I will get it done because being an American citizen for a long time, that country has given my family and myself an opportunity and I will always appreciate that.”
Ortiz won the 2004 ALCS MVP award as the Red Sox stormed back against the Yankees en route to their first World Series in 86 years.
After a second championship in 2007, Ortiz and the Red Sox helped the city of Boston come together with his third and final World Series victory in 2013, this time winning World Series MVP.
Big Papi will forever be a Boston legend.
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