Thousands upon thousands of people converged upon Cooperstown this weekend to celebrate the newest inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame. A large portion of those fans were there to see one man: David Ortiz.
The Boston Red Sox legend received 77.9% of the vote to become the first designated hitter to be inducted on the first ballot.
Former teammate and MLB Network analyst Sean Casey joined Audacy’s The Bradfo Sho podcast to share some Ortiz stories, including the first time he saw Big Papi way back in 1997.
“Big Papi had just been called up like midseason to (Double-A) New Britain. And there were some studs on that team. Torii Hunter, I wanna say like Corey Koskie, maybe (Doug) Mientkiewicz, some really good players, and then Big Papi,” Casey said (7:00 in player above).
Casey was with Double-A Akron in Cleveland’s farm system at the time. He got a firsthand look at the greatness of David Ortiz.
“He came up and this guy was hitting bullets to left center like I’d never seen somebody hit the ball,” he continued. “I remember thinking, this guy’s hands – we have a lot of good players in the field in Double-A, this guy’s a notch above all of us. Just the way he hits the ball. The way the ball comes off his bat. The way he drives the ball. So when I saw that he was called up to the Twins and like playing, not playing, and then he got released.
“I remember thinking ‘They released David Ortiz?...’ I just remember thinking ‘(Twins manager) Tom Kelly did not give him a fair shake to play every day and let the talent come out,’” Casey said.
Ortiz played six MLB seasons with the Twins. He showed flashes of his talent with 38 home runs in 214 games between 2001 and 2002, his final season in Minnesota.
“So when Boston picked him up I remember thinking, ‘Dude, this guy’s gonna dominate if he gets a chance to play,’ and the rest is obviously history, but I remember seeing him in ‘97 going, ‘This guy is different than everyone else here.’”
And dominate he did. Ortiz immediately crushed his season totals in Minnesota with 31, 41, 47, and a career-high 54 home runs in his first four seasons with the Red Sox. Big Papi had more than made a name for himself in Boston.
Ortiz was enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He slashed .286/.380/.552 with 541 home runs and 1768 RBI in his 20-year career, with most of that damage coming as a member of the Boston Red Sox.
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