In all of sports, the argument about what the "Valuable" in the phrase "Most Valuable Player" means is by far the most tiresome. Sportswriters labor like Talmudists over the nuances of the word. Sensible people avoid these disputes altogether. Fans love them. So what do you say we just leave philology out of it and agree that, if it wasn't for David Ortiz, the Boston Red Sox would have been far less fun to root for over the past three years and that there would've been damned fewer sentimental cable docudramas made had the Minnesota Twins hung on to him? Sad history made the Red Sox an institution. David Ortiz made them Carnival.

By any measure, there has been no player more valuable to the Red Sox over the past two seasons than David Ortiz. He has proved his value at the plate, as the best clutch hitter in the team's history by any reasonable measure. Last season, his best, Ortiz batted .352 with runners in scoring position. He hit 19 home runs out of 47 total from the seventh inning on and knocked in the decisive run 21 times. This is a considerable record for a man who came here three years ago because the Twins decided that holes in his swing made him not worth a substantial investment. (Ortiz was greeted upon his arrival by one local columnist as "a sack of" something that one does not want a sack of.) Peter Gammons of ESPN has argued since then that Ortiz has improved more in the major leagues than any other hitter Gammons can recall. Ortiz has proved his historical value, as the man whose two game-winning hits fueled the Red Sox monumental comeback against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

Most important of all, Ortiz has proved his stylistic value. Has there ever been a more wonderfully genuine gesture from a Boston athlete than the way Ortiz insouciantly flips his batting helmet up in the air just before stomping on home plate to score the winning run? There are the big meat hooks giving Manny the dap and the double-point to the heavens, where the gods are chuckling at him. Ever since his arrival, Ortiz's warm, bearlike karma has beamed like sunshine in a suddenly diverse Red Sox clubhouse that contained roustabouts like Johnny Damon, enigmas like Manny Ramirez, and blowhards like Curt Schilling. Ortiz shines over it all. He's everybody's Papi.

He's the smiling face of the franchise now, as broad as an Easter Island statue. In the history of the Red Sox, a uniquely joyless one among franchises, superstars strived to become smaller than life. Ted Williams wanted out so badly that he did everything but dig a tunnel under the Hotel Somerset. (He only became iconic decades after he'd retired.) Carl Yastrzemski was a suspicious, private man. Wade Boggs set a new standard for nutty solipsism, and Roger Clemens virtually mailed himself out of town.

But Ortiz has opened himself to the city in a way that eluded those former stars. He walks to the plate, and Fenway begins to steam. He opens his arms wide and slams his hands together with a conspicuous vigor, a gesture that promises great and startling things will follow. But, of course, he doesn't play in the field. Which, of course, means nothing at all to those of us up here who have watched him remake a doom-struck franchise and who recognize what he has been to the Red Sox since he first stepped off the plane. Invaluable.

Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for the Globe Magazine. E-mail him at CPierce@globe.com.