It’s Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. David Ortiz is up to bat for the Boston Red Sox, who are down three games to zero.
At this point, Dave Roberts has already made the famous steal to save the game. But here, in the bottom of the 12th, with the game tied at 4, Red Sox fans are still in grief over what took place the previous night, a 19-8 loss to their arch-rival, the New York Yankees.
One more loss would continue the Red Sox misery for another year. It would be 86 years and counting since the last title. Yet somehow, something about that night was different. Ortiz, the designated hitter, didn’t know that a single swing would alter Boston’s baseball trajectory. He just knew the sights and feelings from a night ago had to change.
With one single swing, Ortiz ended the game 6-4 and extended the series. Above all, he gave hope and ensured there would indeed be one more game of the series (at least) for the Beantown faithful.
The following night in Game 5, he did it again with another big hit, with Johnny Damon‘s running to the plate to ensure that the Red Sox will indeed be heading back to New York for Game 6.
Curt Schilling‘s bloody sock dominance in Game 6 set the stage for a Game 7. But when all hope seemed lost after Damon was thrown out at the plate that night, Ortiz came up and swung one big swing to make it 2-0 Boston. Damon followed up with a grand slam, and the rest was history.
The Boston Red Sox, at one point dead in the dirty water of the Charles River, had come back from a 3-0 deficit against the Pinstripes and were headed to the World Series. Ortiz was named the ALCS Most Valuable Player for his efforts.
Fast forward four games, and Boston ended a nightmare. For the first time in 86 years, a World Series championship, beating the St. Louis Cardinals nonetheless in a sweep. Families across New England who supported this team finally got to sleep the night with tears of joy.
David Ortiz didn’t just become a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer; he brought life to the city and re-established the franchise’s dominance.
Who could’ve imagined Ortiz, affectionately known as Big Papi or Mount Everest, would be part of something so unique? Ortiz was just into his second season with the Red Sox, having arrived in 2003 from the Minnesota Twins. Fast forward to 2021, Ortiz is up for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
While his stats are certainly impressive (541 home runs on a .286 batting average, along with 10 All-Star appearances and seven Silver Slugger awards), they are just icing accolades on the cake. Ortiz should get into Cooperstown not just for his statistics but for what he did for a city in their history.
Year after year, from 1918 until 2004, Red Sox fans calmly, patiently, and agonizingly waited for that one moment where they could celebrate a World Series championship. For much of the time, it was either a heartbreak, pure disappointment, or vehement rage watching everyone else win. This included the Yankees’ dominance, including the pinstripes three-peat from 1998-2000.
Bucky Dent or even Aaron Boone, for that matter, it just never felt right because Boston was always on the losing end. Beat writers were having a field day at their expense, and columnists taking to the keyboards to jeer, all of which changed their tune following 2004. It was just something about that one swing on that night in Fenway that changed everything.
Ortiz is not a base-stealing phenom like Roberts. He’s not even an All-Star pitcher like Josh Beckett, Chris Sale, or even Schilling, for that matter. He’s a hitter, but somehow his impact in the city is up there with the late Ted Williams.
Williams is and will always be a Boston legend, but he never got the glory of winning a World Series like so many of his time. In contrast, Ortiz has three of them, the last of which holds as significant meaning as 2004 and 2007 did.
The events of the Boston Marathon bombing brought Beantown to its knees once again, a time of despair, grief, and pain. Ortiz, the eventual World Series MVP, led Boston on a playoff run that no one saw coming from a team that finished last in the division a year prior.
In terms of inspiring championship runs, Ortiz has two of the most incredible runs of the last century. Pretty soon, he will have the Hall of Fame honor bestowed upon him. But his real claim to fame is how he changed a city’s fortune. That’s a proper home run right there.