No taking flight without him
Nice gesture, but a bit superfluous, isn't it, this business of naming a plane after David Ortiz, which he gets to see for the first time today at Logan.
You're Big Papi, who needs an airplane?
And if you're the Red Sox, who needs another ride when you have the giant arms of Ortiz holding you aloft in a playoff race that comes down to the season's final weekend with the Yankees a game ahead of the Sox in the American League East, and the Indians and Sox dead even in the wild-card race after all three teams won last night?
Good to know, though, at a time when gasoline is nearly three bucks a gallon, that Ortiz says the ''MVP" chants that echo throughout the Fens when he comes to the plate are enough to fuel his ability to deliver the improbable, time and again.
''That sounds good," Ortiz said. ''It kind of puts you in a good mood, you know. When you walk to the plate in a situation like that and the crowd starts screaming like that, you feel like Superman. You feel like, 'OK, I can't let my people down, you've got to come up with something.' Hopefully, I don't have to bunt in those situations like I did last night."
No bunts required. Breaking through the gloom that seemed to envelop Fenway Park when the Sox fell behind last night while both the Yankees and Indians opened big leads, Ortiz hit a tying home run in the eighth, then brought down the house again in the ninth with an RBI single off Blue Jays closer Miguel Batista that gave the Sox a 5-4 win and assured them of surviving at least until October.
The possibilities are dizzying. A couple of MIT guys who have their own website, coolstandings.com, to calculate such things, give the Yankees a 61.5 percent to 38.5 percent edge when it comes to winning the division, and the Indians a 59.4 percent chance, to 22.5 percent for the Sox, of claiming the wild card. But if the Sox take two of three from the Bombers, and the Indians take two of three at home against a White Sox team that already has won the Central, we're looking at possible two extra playoff games to break a three-way tie. It would be Yankees-Red Sox in Yankee Stadium Monday, followed by the loser playing the Indians the next day.
''You know what, I'm going to try and talk to the scoreboard guy and tell him, 'You get the scoreboard off the field because we just hit and watch the scoreboard, pitch and watch the scoreboard,' " Ortiz said. ''Let me tell you, it's hard when you see a team [that you're] fighting for a spot to go to playoffs score six runs early in the game and you're playing here and the opposite team is killing you, too.
''You'll be like, 'I guess we can count on trouble.' But we have a lot of veteran players here who try not to pay attention to that, who concentrate on the game we're playing here. There's nothing you can do but play the game you're supposed to."
From first pitch to last, manager Terry Francona insisted, even after the Boston fell behind, 4-1, there was a feeling in the Sox' dugout that they were ultimately going to prevail. It's hard not to have that feeling when Ortiz is on your side. He was in the middle of every element of the Sox' comeback. In the sixth, he reached safely when an overshifted Jays shortstop Russ Adams strayed too far to his left, tumbling to the ground after gloving a ball that would have been routinely handled by second baseman Aaron Hill.
That preceded Manny Ramirez's home run over the visitors' bullpen that made it 4-3. Leading off the eighth, Ortiz cleared the Monster with a drive off a pitcher whose name he didn't know, Vinnie Chulk, but whose stuff he knew by heart, having plugged in a DVD of his at-bats against the Jays reliever as soon as he saw him warming up in the pen. Ortiz knew that Chulk would try to get him out with that dived at the last moment and caused lefthanded hitters to roll out harmlessly to second base. Once Chulk fell behind, 2 and 0, Ortiz said, he counseled himself to wait for a pitch up in the zone, and he got it, a fastball high and away.
Ramirez walked and Jason Varitek singled, giving the Sox runners on the corners with no outs. They failed to score, but the sight of Ramirez flying from first and third should have signaled, Ortiz said, how badly the Sox wanted this game.
''When you see Manny doing things like that, that tells you if were going to be in the playoffs or not," Ortiz said. ''I mean, Manny is a boxful of surprises. I'm telling you right now, the guy can go from the best game to the worst ever, from the worst hustling to the Johnny Damon type. But he wants to win. He's very into it."
They all were, Ortiz said, even the clubhouse man, Pookie Jackson.
''The best thing that ever happened to this team was winning this game tonight," Ortiz said. ''Everybody was on their toes. Everybody had attitude. You see Pookie, our clubbie, Pookie was out there, just like punching people and everything. That's fun. That tells you we're trying."
And the last word, as it has so many times since he arrived here, belonged to Ortiz. A club-record 11 home runs in September. A team-leading 28 RBIs this month. Twenty home runs that have tied or given the Sox a lead. Nineteen home runs that have come in the seventh inning or later. And a scorched ground ball to the left of shortstop Adams that had everyone counting the hours until the Bombers arrive tonight.
Except for Ortiz, who had to check out his new ride first.
''If we go to the West Coast to play, all you guys are invited," he said, his black beret placed just so on his head. ''I hope they got room. Free? I'll let you know tomorrow."
