David Americo Ortiz Arias, “Big Papi,” is set to be inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in a ceremony that will take place in July 2022. Few players were able to affect MLB lines as a designated hitter in the way that Big Papi did it with the Boston Red Sox.
Ortiz played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball, but his 14 years with the Boston Red Sox is what he is most known for. Even though Ortiz rarely stepped onto the field as a first baseman later in his career, few players were able to impact the game in which he did.
Like many professional baseball players, Ortiz was born in the Dominican Republic, and his birth occurred on November 18, 1975. Little is known about his younger life, except for the fact that baseball was always a big part of his childhood.
The Seattle Mariners signed Ortiz to a professional contract on November 28, 1992, just days after he turned 17. Seattle listed their new acquisition with the name David Arias and that name would follow him around for several seasons.
After a trade to the Minnesota Twins on September 13, 1996, Ortiz officially informed his new team of his name change. He would later go on and make his Major League debut with Minnesota on September 2, 1997.
After an up and down tenure with the Minnesota Twins, Ortiz was released in 2002 and signed a new deal with the Boston Red Sox on January 2022, 2003. Things really started to take off for Ortiz in 2004 as he was an All-Star for the first time and finished in the top-five in AL MVP voting.
It was in 2004 that the Boston Red Sox also won the World Series for the first time in nearly 90 years, and Ortiz was right in the middle of the action on offense. Boston then awarded the slugger with a long contract extension, extending his career with the Red Sox.
Ortiz last appeared in a Major League Baseball game on October 2, 2016 and then retired as a member of the Boston Red Sox. During his career, Ortiz was named to the All Star Game a whopping 10 times, and won three World Series championships.
The slugger never won the AL MVP Award, but he did win the ALCS MVP back in 2004 and the World Series MVP in 2013. Ortiz retired with 541 career home runs and also sported a career batting average of .286.
A Legend in Boston
Not only did Ortiz put up some massive numbers during the regular season in Boston, but he was often the hero in the postseason. Ortiz had 11 career walk-off home runs for the Boston Red Sox during his illustrious career.
The fans quickly gravitated to Ortiz, and he was also a player that loved and celebrated his fans. A speech given at Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon bombing will go down as one of the best speeches of all time.
Since retiring from MLB, Ortiz has remained a fixture with the TV side of things, and that work brings him back to the Boston area often. Those championship Red Sox teams were loaded with talent, but Ortiz was in the middle of the action, doing significant damage at the plate.
Surviving A Shooting
The fact that Ortiz will be able to enjoy his Hall of Fame induction in-person was not always a given based on an event that took place back in 2019. On June 19 of that year, Ortiz was shot in the back while visiting a night club in his native Dominican Republic.
Immediately following the shooting, Ortiz underwent a six hour surgery that required the removal of several organs. That next day, the Boston Red Sox sent a plane over to get Ortiz and bring him back to Boston so that he could undergo further treatment.
Ortiz eventually underwent three long surgeries after the shooting, but was ultimately released from the hospital on July 26, 2019. The official details from the shooting have not been confirmed, but close to 15 people have been arrested as a result of the investigation.
