hen sports fans think of great Boston Red Sox players they look to the numbers hanging S over right field in the city's historic Fenway Park Ted Williams's number 9 Carl Yastrzemski's 8 or Jim Rice s 14 were all retired by the Red Sox following those players spectacular careers with the team I For more than a century fans have V filled Fenway Park to see the greats of the game dazzle them with towering home runs and important victories Today's Red Sox fans fill the stands at Fenway to see one living David Ortiz is one of the most feared hitters in baseball His number 34 will likely join the numbers of seven other Boston Red Sox players that have been
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 OU MUUU 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 O 0 0 BALL STRIKE OUT O legend play David Ortiz The designated hitter DH known as Big Papi has wowed Red Sox fans with big hits and an even bigger smile for more than a decade Whether sitting atop the park s iconic thirty seven foot eleven meter tall left field wall nicknamed the Green Monster or cheer ing from the centerfield bleachers everyone in Fenway Park hopes to get a home run ball when Ortiz steps to the plate In 2004 Ortiz's big bat led the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in eighty six years His clutch hitting helped Boston win two more championships over the next decade and solidified his reputation as one of the best big game players in Major League Baseball
APTER Growing Up Papi avid Américo Ortiz Arias was born on November 18 1975 in the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic Ortiz s parents Enrique Ortiz and Angela Rosa Arias had two children David and his sister Albania Ortiz s father was a baseball player a pitcher growing up When Enrique and Angela got married and had David Enrique stopped playing baseball and sold auto parts to take care of his family Enrique taught David a lot about baseball and Ortiz said his father helped him throughout his career in the major leagues Angela Rosa Arias worked as a secretary in the Dominican Republic s Department of Agriculture She also traveled all over the Caribbean selling clothes and trying to make extra money for the family When Ortiz was fourteen or fifteen years old he and his family left Santo Domingo and moved to a town called Haina Going QUICK FACTC from a city of nearly three million to the much smaller Haina was a big change The Dominican Republic shares for the family The house was very small and the streets were not paved There the island of Hispaniola with the country of Haiti with not much to do Ortiz was constantly playing baseball STRIKE OL
Growing Up Papi IIII These children are playing baseball in the Dominican Republic Cubans first brought baseball to the Dominican Republic in the 1880s and early 1890s Learning the Game Baseball is the national sport of the Dominican Republic Many great baseball players have grown up in the Dominican Republic and had long major league careers Ortiz learned how to play baseball on the streets of Santo Domingo which meant he was not playing with the equipment many baseball players are used to Ortiz said he never played baseball with a glove when he was growing up His friends often did not have baseballs or bats either He said he usually played with a broomstick as a bat and a bottle cap as a ball Sometimes he would steal a sock from his father and wrap it in a plastic bag He would even break the heads off his sister s dolls and use them as
