With the MLB season coming to an end Sunday, more stories of Boston Red Sox darling David Ortiz are coming to light. Boston Celtics new signing Al Horford recalled a particularly significant event that told him a lot about Ortiz's persona.
Here's an excerpt from the story, as told by Sports Illustrated's Andrew Sharp:
It was December 2011. The NBA lockout had just ended, but Al Horford was still in the Dominican Republic. He was getting married to Amelia Vega, a former Miss Universe whom he’d met in, of all places, Boston. And there was a problem.
“We’re down there, and I realize I’m supposed to get a limo for [my wife], to pick her up and take her to where we’re getting married,” Horford says. “And then, obviously being in the Dominican Republic, things never go how they’re supposed to. So three hours before the wedding, we find out that there’s no limo.”
It was also Christmas Eve.
“I literally freaked out,” Horford remembers. “Nothing’s open, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Eventually he did what one does in the case of Dominican emergencies. He called David Ortiz: “I’m like, ‘Hey man, this is what’s going on. We’re getting married in a couple hours. I need a car. What am I going to do?’ ”
“Don’t worry,” Ortiz said. “I got you.”
Ortiz wasn’t even on the island at this point, but it didn’t matter. He told Horford to send a friend over to Ortiz’s house to pick up his Rolls-Royce Phantom. “I’ll have it there in 30 minutes,” Ortiz said. “I just gotta get it washed.”
Horford was amazed. “He didn’t even know my guy down there,” he laughs. “I sent a friend of mine. And he picks up the Phantom, brings it over to my wife. . . . And you know, that’s a very expensive car. But [Ortiz] tells me to keep it until I leave. So we’re there for a couple more days, and we have the car the whole time. It’s just one of those things, it shows he has a really big heart.”
It comes to no surprise that “Big Papi” is a well-connected man, after all, he told ESPN earlier in the year that the most known contact he had on his cell phone was the President of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina.
Ortiz has been known for being one of the most noble baseball players and his friendly, charismatic and straight-forward ways have him as one of the best regarded players in baseball.
After 19 years in the major leagues and 13 years with the Red Sox, David Ortiz leaves the city of Boston in good hands with his compatriot Al Horford as the new big man in town.
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