Red Sox DH/warrior-poet
David Ortiz is in the midst of what will shape up as one of the best final
seasons ever by a hitter. Throughout the year, he's been feted at ballparks
around the league, and he's spoken openly about his desire to be honored at
Yankee Stadium. As we learned on Thursday, he'll get his wish ...
Barring a playoff encounter in the
Bronx (still a possibility),
Sept. 29 will occasion Big Papi's final trip to Yankee Stadium. The Yankees
will certainly behave accordingly during that pregame ceremony, but what of the
fans? Well, there's already a grassbutt movement among Yankee rooters to moon Ortiz on that
same day. So we'll see how that goes.
In related matters, Ortiz is a career
.305/.396/.569 hitter against the Yankees with 52 homers in 236 games. At the
current iteration of Yankee Stadium, though, he's hit just .234/.332/.491.
So is all of this appropriate among supposed blood rivals? Players
fraternize, switch teams frequently, share the same agents, and so on, so
there's much less of a "firewall" than there once was. As well, any
sort of Red Sox-Yankees rubicon was crossed back on Sept. 28, 2014 when Derek Jeter was honored
with a ceremony at Fenway.
