“YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ” A-Rod’s Loyal “Public Defender”
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you have been a Major League baseball player for 17 years and referring to your defense of your friend A-Rod, you said: “we learn from our mistakes.” Yet, after 17 years of learning about the media, you still gratuitously shoot off your mouth and damage your team.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you said that the plunking your Yankee friend A-Rod was a distraction for your team, which needed to stay focused on the Playoff race. Then you create a much larger distraction by publicly disagreeing with your team mates and “sticking up” for your friend on the arch-rival Yankees. When did one of the Yankees stick up for one of the Red Sox, when they were plunked by a New York pitcher.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and the Red Sox Nation remained steadfastly loyal to you when your steroid problem was revealed in 2009 by the New York Times; are you surprised that many now feel betrayed that you are taking the side of your long-time friend and Yankee Alex Rodriguez?
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and many Red Sox fans and team mates understand your loyalty to a long-time friend and abide your decision to go out to dinner with him to have a private conversation and, perhaps, to offer him some friendly advice about his current contretemps with MLB and the Commissioner.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and the Sox fans who have been faithful to you do not understand why you felt that it was acceptable to volunteer your opinion to the media and generate an unnecessary cock-up, which results in headlines that say you are “sticking up for A-Rod” and “taking sides against your own team mates.”
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you said “Alex and I are friends…once you cross the white lines, everyone’s on their own.” So, if Alex, an opponent, is “on his own,” why publicly scold your pitcher for plunking your friend?
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you opined that the pitch that hit A-Rod “woke up a monster in the Yankees’ team” and maybe it did spark the Yankees to win that game; but you have awakened a more insidious monster on your own team: maybe your team mates are now questioning your loyalty to them and to the team and that fetid fog will linger in the clubhouse during this critical part of the season.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and maybe you spoke out because you still harbor some resentment about the way the Red Sox disrespected you, when they haggled over your last contract.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and your team mates, John Lackey and Jon Lester, said they didn’t think your friend A-Rod should be allowed to play while serving his suspension. Maybe they should have kept a cork on their feelings and you felt free to reply on behalf of your friend.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you say–no surprise–that you wish this whole steroid issue could be put on the back burner; so why light a fire under it and remind people that your tested positive for PEDs during a survey of MLB players in 2003? Why rekindle the old questions about when you enhanced your performance:
“… [Is it] possible for someone who couldn’t catch up to a fastball in 2009, a year in which he hit .238, to, suddenly, get his career turned around in his late 30’s and hit .318 in 2012 and .320 in 2013.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/a-rod-finds-a-friend-david-ortiz
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and you cautioned your pitchers that, if they throw at Alex and his team mates on the “Big Bad” Yankees, there would be a terrible price to pay:
“Alex later hit one way out there. You’re talking about a good team that you can’t wake up.”
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and, if Pedroia is the guts of the team, then you were the heart and defending your friend A-Rod has some fans wondering if you care for him more than your Red Sox team mates.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and by now you know the codes of the game:
You express your dislike for a player by plunking him with a pitch.
You don’t try to do serious or permanent damage to the batter.
You deliver the message with a fastball to the rump or lower rib cage; you never throw at the guy’s head.
The batter receives the message, glares at the pitcher, trots to First base, and does not rub the bruised area.
It is understood that the offended team may retaliate by plunking an equivalent player on the opposing team.
That’s baseball.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and the code also allows managers and players to gripe about the plunking after the game; what it does not anticipate is that a player might assert that his team should not have plunked a player on the opposing team.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and your friend Alex Rodriguez says he wants his “day in court” and that is his right. But, now, some fans and, perhaps, even some of your team mates, may wonder why you volunteered to be your friend’s “public defender”—his “clubhouse lawyer,” when he plays for the team in the other clubhouse.
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and can you answer this Red Sox trivia question?
Q: On July 5, 2008, your team mate, Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez, was hit three times by Yankee pitchers; which Yankee player complained about it? [See answer below.]
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ, the Red Sox fans’ beloved “Big Papi,” but you hurt your fans and your team mates when–to defend a Yankee player, who is your friend– you turn into “Big Pop-Off.”
YOU’RE DAVID ORTIZ and maybe you have provided yet another example of why they need to post a sign in every clubhouse:
[ SHUT UP AND PLAY ]
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A: Nobody.
* “I didn’t like it. I don’t think it was the right thing to do,” Ortiz told USA TODAY Sports. “But we don’t all think alike, and the guy who did it, Dempster, is a great guy. It’s not that I didn’t think it was right because Alex and I are friends, because once you cross the white lines, everyone’s on their own.
“But we’ve got Tampa right on our heels, and that pitch woke up a monster in the Yankees’ team at that moment. You saw how the game ended up. CC (Sabathia) was throwing 91 (mph) and started throwing 96. Alex later hit one way out there. You’re talking about a good team that you can’t wake up. But we learn from our mistakes.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/08/21/david-ortiz-defends-alex-rodriguez-peds/2683315/