Ortiz gets call reversed in his favor, still issues apology

The Minnesota Twins and the Boston Red Sox played a game on June 18 at Fenway Park. There was a controversial call involving Red Sox infamous designated hitter David Ortiz, known to the baseball world as Big Papi, and Twins first baseman Joe Mauer.

Ortiz hit a ball to the right side of Mauer who bobbled it. The play was labeled an error while Big Papi thought he should have had his hit. He got that hit Monday, before his team faced the Mariners at Safeco Field.  The official scorer Bob Ellis, from Wednesday’s game against the Twins, reversed his call on the play, taking an error away from Mauer and giving Ortiz not only a hit, but a four point boost in his batting average.

Papi hasn’t been having the best season this year, even though he did hit the game winning home run in the tenth inning against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday. Although the numbers really are not that bad. Ortiz is hitting .252 with 17 home runs and 45 RBI. It’s not on of his .300 seasons but it could be a lot worse for the 38-year old.

However, after the call was reversed Ortiz issued an apology, saying he overreacted on Wednesday when he gave the press box a thumbs down on the call and expressed his frustration with the call afterwards. According to MLB.com Ortiz  made the following statement, ‘

"“All I have to say is I know I owe an apology to MLB, Mr. Joe Torre, even the scorekeeping guys. I know that I had frustration come out that way, and that’s not what you really want. ““This has been a season already that has been jam-packed with frustration.  At the end of the day, our job is based on results. I sit down and watch that TV every night after the game and I go 0-for-4, and all people talk and [complain] about is why I’m not hitting .300.”“Of course, you don’t want to get caught into a situation … We are a family that of course needs to protect each other. There’s a lot of people mad at me because I argued something that I didn’t think I should get. I don’t blame them. I’m not apologizing just because I got that result. It’s because the message was spread out based on frustration. That’s why I’m apologizing."

Not a bad move for Ortiz to issue such a sincere and honest apology. Many other players don’t have the guts to stand up and say they were wrong, especially having gotten the result they wanted anyway. It was a classy move by Ortiz. Now we all know Big Papi a bit better. He’ll admit when he is at fault, so when he gets fired up (as in the David Price incident) it seems we should be able to take Ortiz’s word.