David Ortiz is not only one of the best designated hitters of all time, but he’s also one of the most universally beloved figures – except maybe by Yankees fans.
For as great as Ortiz was on the field, the stories he tells – or the stories about him – might be even better.
Former MLB pitcher Brian Bannister joined the Red Sox scouting staff in 2015 and remained with the organization until December 2019. He is currently the director of pitching for the San Francisco Giants.
Bannister joined WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Audacy Original Podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” and told a great story about Ortiz hitting a home run while his phone was still on an active call in the locker room.
“David is one of my favorite players of all time. Just a tremendous human,” Bannister said (34:30 in player above). “I have this weird role, I’m going into my ninth year as a major-league coach and I’m not in the dugout. I’m a pitching coach, I’ve never been the pitching coach in the dugout for the game in my entire life. So I’m kind of weird that way.”
Bannister’s role had him primarily sitting in the locker room tracking pitch data when the Red Sox were on the road. He’d relay pertinent information to the dugout when needed, but most of the time was spent observing.
Ortiz was dealing with feet and ankle issues during his final season so he’d spend a lot of time off of his feet and on the couch in the locker room with Bannister. That allowed Bannister to witness a great baseball story firsthand.
“So here’s me, kind of the guy that nobody knows what my title should be sitting in the locker room all of the time, and here’s David, who’s one of the best players of all time and just a hero to me,” he said. “I was always intimidated to talk to him even though he’s the nicest guy in the world. So he’d be on the couch and he was always calling people. Normally, you don’t call people during a game, but it’s David. And he’s not calling people about baseball, he’s just having great conversations.”
Bannister explained that this was a regular thing for Ortiz, who would call his friends and family and just have extended conversations about whatever he wanted.
“Because being a DH is a very lonely life. You go up, you get a couple of swings, see a couple of pitches, and then you go sit down for an hour. It’s not this glamorous lifestyle, you don’t get to play a position,” he said. “So he’s just on this couch and every locker room in the big leagues has kind of a square couch setup. So he’d always just be there across from me.
“I just remember he’d have an earbud in and one time he was just like ‘Hey, hold on,’ and he just like put his phone down, put his earbud down, and just did what he always did,” Bannister continued. “He went out – I’m just sitting there and the phone’s still sitting there talking to somebody like he always does and I’m just watching the TV up in the corner and he just goes up, hits a homer, circles the bases, comes back in, and sits down and picks up his conversation again.
“I’m looking around like ‘Did anybody else just see what just happened? This is like the greatest thing of all time.’ At heart, I’m just the biggest baseball nut of all time. There are people that are bigger fans than me but I’m just a little kid when it comes to great baseball stories, and to be able to sit there 15 feet away from David Ortiz and see what just happened, and I’m like I have to share this with the world. I was waiting for him to get inducted and I was like I got to share this story. I’ve been holding this in, people need to know about this.”
Bannister initially shared the story over a year ago in a Twitter thread, but you can never get enough great Big Papi stories.
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