Boston Red Sox: David Ortiz is a commercial success
Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz is a natural before the cameras, but before Papi, there was another baseball player who mastered the art of celebrity.
A very lucrative sideline for baseball players is selling their name for endorsements. Drifting back to a bygone era the reward for some banal postgame discussion would be a gift certificate to a local store – usually $50, but in that time frame it was a healthy amount of money. How times have changed.
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new and certainly not with baseball. Since the days when a fan base was created there was always a business willing to be associated with a current or past star. In the days before television and radio an often lucrative sideline would be the stage or vaudeville circuit. Enter King Kelly.
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Kelly was one of the very first up in lights stars of baseball. Kelly was also an individual who clearly understood how to maximize his fame and his talent. A bitter salary dispute with the Cincinnati Reds resulted in Kelly being shipped to the Boston Beaneaters (Braves) for $10,000 in 1887. Kelly then acquired the nickname “The $10,000 beauty.”
Kelly realized the value of personality in that people would pay to see a celebrity and Kelly took to the stage in 1888. Kelly was also both intrigued and fascinated with the stage and that certainly helped. Kelly also – unlike many who followed – put some serious effort into learning this new craft. Kelly succeeded and remained on the stage for years.
Kelly may have been the first player to have an agent via his connection with entertainment. Kelly also wrote a book called “Play Ball” that is generally regarded as the first baseball tome written by a player. Need more? He’s the basis for the famous era song “Slide, Kelly, Slide” and Kelly is also reputed to be the inspiration behind the classic baseball poem “Casey at the Bat.”
In 1894 Kelly contracted pneumonia while living in his adopted hometown of Boston and died. At that junction of his baseball life, he had just completed his first season with the New York Giants and was clearly, at 35-years-old, in the latter stages of what would be a Hall of Fame career.
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When I watch baseball players before the camera they appear as wooden as the bats they swing. Rarely is a commercial attention-getting. I see Mike Trout in one and think there will certainly be no Clio Awards handed out for that production, but gems do surface and there are three that are – to me – classics from Boston baseball.
The first was a Ford commercial in the spring of 2004 that featured Curt Schilling. Schilling is hitching a ride and the road sign points to Boston at 2,600 miles. The driver of the F-150 asks where Schilling is going and Schilling says: “To Boston to break an 86-year curse.” Nostradamus could not have been more predictive than the writers were for this ad.
The second was again Schilling and was for Dunkin’ Donuts. Schilling is in the locker room with a recorder attempting to learn a Boston accent. That one is a gem. My own personal recollection is being stranded in the Tokyo subway system on a family vacation attempting to decipher a map. All of a sudden I hear “Boston! Boston!” and a local comes up to help me. He had spent two years at M.I.T. and was well versed in our unique dialect.
The third commercial is the latest one by Ortiz and it is for Verizon. This commercial is exceedingly well done and incorporates the retirement of Papi into the framework of the script. In addition, his son is also part of the commercial. This commercial is not new for Ortiz who has a string of gems that are comparable to some of his noted game heroics.
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Ortiz is a natural before the camera and he has done several spots for Sports Center, products, and even Saturday Night Live on his way to becoming a quality performer. Ortiz certainly is an MVP in a presentation before the camera – a natural.
Sources:
Baseball: The Early Years by Harold Seymour
Slide, Kelly, Slide by Marty Appel
Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia