BY FRANCIS FLYNN
CARVER, Mass. – David Ortiz, you old seadog, you. Papi’s still got it. All these years later. Just amazing.
I knocked off work on the bog in time to catch most of this one. As a little reward to myself, I drank about half of my week’s pay for these recaps, chased it with a bit of whiskey, told the old lady to stay off the landline for a minute and cranked up the modem so I could write this website.
Being directly frank and truthful, I can’t say whether that ball Ortiz hit today was fair or foul. But it doesn’t really matter. The umpires had no idea. Neither did Jerry Remy, he wouldn’t even say. But damn, that thing was high and deep and there’s gotta be some sort of benefit of the doubt given for hitting a baseball into the first stratosphere of space or piercing the o-zone layer or whatever part of heaven it was that David touched with that dinger.
I got to thinking and maybe it was the double-digit beers going through, but I started wondering, what if Mo Vaughn woulda done what Papi’s doing? If he’d been smart enough not to chase the money out in California’s LA land. Take Boston’s money instead. I can’t think of many guys who’ve thrived (except fa Ruth…) after they left town.
Here in Beantown, loyalty is rewarded. And that goes both ways. Ortiz is living proof when he hits these late-game bombs…just a gargantuan shot last night. Too bad guys like Mo leave town instead of staying here and basking in the glory that my man David’s getting now.
Oh well, no reason to think about old shit though. Why even bring it up, ya know?
The Sox got their first series win of the season. Now it’s time for New York. Ellsbury – you coulda been here for this…just like Mo.
Ed. Note: Carver man and friend of the site Francis Flynn is an avid Red Sox fan, Boston-born and bred. Flynn’s day job is maintaining a 10-acre cranberry bog and tract of farmland that has been in his family for three generations. But his passion is following his region’s most beloved baseball team. Flynn recently agreed to provide Fenway Pastoral readers with his own recaps throughout the 2014 regular season. All we had to do in return was promise to publish his pieces unedited and to send him a case of Miller High Life (bar bottles were specified) every week.
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