Red Sox Honor David Ortiz's 500th Home Run With Pregame Ceremony
The Red Sox have sucked at a lot of things in recent years, but one thing that they’ve always been great at is their pregame ceremonies.
From the 100 years of Fenway ceremony, to the first game after the Boston Marathon tragedy, to honoring Pedro Martinez’s Hall of Fame induction this year, right up to David Ortiz’s 500th career home run celebration on Monday night. Dr. Charles Steinberg is great at what he does, and the Red Sox sure know how to create memorable moments and tug at your heartstrings.
It’s a weird feeling to watch this ceremony, knowing that it’s just about the end of the road for Ortiz’s playing days. Nothing kills me more than realizing that there will soon come a day when Ortiz will no longer be smashing home runs for the Boston Red Sox. He’ll be 40 in November, which is about 45 in Dominican years, so we know that age will soon catch up to him, yet here he is at 39 years old with 35 bombs and 98 RBIs heading into Monday night’s game. I was doing great at ignoring the fact that he’s at the tail end of his career, until I watched this ceremony. Luckily, it was only a highlight reel of home runs, so I held it together. But when the day comes that Ortiz decides to hang up his spikes, and the Red Sox organize an even bigger ceremony for him, and show a highlight reel of all his big moments in a Red Sox uniform, I’ll be crying harder than Bob Kravitz over his keyboard after the Patriots win the Super Bowl this year.
But enough with the Debbie Downer shit. What’s this, like Pedro’s fourteenth pregame ceremony this year? Next time the Red Sox decide that they want to finish in last place, they should just hire Pedro to take the mic before every game and say whatever he wants. Speaking of having the mic, they should’ve hooked our boy Marty Walsh up with some earplugs. The audio delay had him naming September 21, 2015 as Dyovid Ortiz Day, not David Ortiz Day, but I’ll cut him some slack on this one.
I also enjoyed the five seconds of confusion when the driver’s side door opened on Ortiz’s car, trying to figure out who the guy was in the Red Sox jersey, but it was just some guy. Totally caught me off guard. Also, gotta love Papi throwing some shade at the Rays’ dugout by calling them the Devil Rays. Absolutely diabolical. Just no respect for that organization whatsoever, and rightfully so.