Last week I wrote about David Ortiz.
So let's call this Papi II.
He's become the story of this young baseball season, this story that won't go away?
Is he done?
What's the matter with him?
How long can the Boston Red Sox go with him?
How can anyone lose it this quickly?
What's the matter with Big Papi?
These are the questions that now swirl around the Red Sox like summer flies around a light pole.
And the backstory is that he has been so beloved here, as good a clutch hitter as there's been in recent Red Sox history. In a sense to have watched him the last few years was to watch one of the best stories in all of baseball, this man who came here and found his fame, complete with a personality to match.
So what's the matter with Big Papi?
It's the question that everyone in baseball is asking, and there may not be one simple answer.
That's what we want, something as quick and easy as a text message or a sound bite. We want it to be the aftereffects of last year's wrist injury, something wrong with his swing, a lack of confidence, some personal problem, something that makes sense.
But what if there is no one answer that jumps out at us?
What if this is just the natural order of things, albeit speeded up?
What if what the last two months have been are shadows rapidly moving across Ortiz's career, and all the other things simply obscure what's going on?
This isn't basketball, where a great player can change his game as his athleticism erodes, like Larry Bird once did when he no longer got by people as easily as he once did, like even Michael Jordan did in his Washington Wizard years.
This isn't football where your eroding skills might not be as noticeable.
This is being in a batter's box, where there's no place to hide.
This is Big Papi, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that he no longer can handle the fastball, regardless of the reason.
All athletes have a shelf life, a time when they are in their prime, the time when the great ones make the game seem easier than it's supposed to be. So it was with Big Papi. To see him come to the plate just two years ago was to see it all look easy, complete with his flair for the dramatic. As if he were a great fictional character, complete with the nickname that seemingly had become as much a part of Boston as the swan boats.
That's what makes this seem so sad.
This is not Manny Ramirez with his problematic personality. Ortiz is a man everyone likes and respects, teammates and fans alike. This is a man who has come through so many times in the past. This is a man who, in a better sports world, would not be going through his own form of hell right now, lost at the plate, his lack of production one of the main topics of this young baseball season. Sports can be a cruel lover.
But it also happens to all athletes in one way or another.
That's what often overlooked here.
We've become conditioned to think that all of this is forever, big cheers, dramatic home runs, all of it.
This is one of the unfortunate legacies of this steroid era, this pervading sense that great players never age, that they somehow defy time.
Wasn't that what made the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens stories all the greater, that they were doing all these wondrous things in their 40s, this sense that time's rush could be overcome if you only worked hard enough? Until it all got more complicated, the public telling of baseball's dirty little secret.
But even though many athletes play longer than they did a generation ago, thanks to better training and better nutrition, the clock is always ticking. And players approaching their mid-30s are entering dangerous territory, especially power hitters with big bodies.
And maybe Ortiz can still get the magic back and this season can be turned around, even if there are rumors that the Red Sox are thinking of bringing in someone who can help give them what Ortiz no longer gives them. Maybe by the end of summer much of this will be forgotten.
I hope so.
You know this is not easy for him, this proud man who now almost has a referendum on his future every time he steps up to the plate. This proud man who knows that questions now swirl around him, everyone asking questions when he has no answers.
And if this really is a sign that we have seen the best of David Ortiz, that this is the preview of what's to come?
There is no sin in an athlete growing old, even if it's before our very eyes.
There is no sin in growing old, even if it's Big Papi.
Sports is no country for old men.
(Contact Bill Reynolds at breynold@projo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Providence Journal
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