11

Coasting

There were several times in my career when I didn’t understand what Theo Epstein was thinking and I had no interest in talking with him. It was nothing personal. Theo the smart and passionate Red Sox fan was cool with me. But Theo the numbers-crunching Red Sox executive was a real motherfucker when it came to negotiating my contracts.

I felt like he drove a hard bargain when it came to his own players. When it came to free agents who had no history with the Red Sox, he was likely to keep handing out the cash until they eventually said yes. I didn’t like it, but I understood. That’s the unfair reality of the free agent market. It’s not a time when the best players get paid; it’s a time when the best available players get paid. I knew it was a system that I couldn’t change, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pissed about the situation every now and then. I’ll tell you what always made me feel better about my big-spending team: we had an opportunity to compete for all the top free agents, and ultimately that gave me a better chance to win a championship.

The end of the 2006 season was one of those times when I didn’t mind talking to Theo. And as I talked with him, giving my opinion on what we needed in 2007, I got the feeling that he was genuinely listening to what I had to say. I knew that he had his own thoughts on how to improve a team that didn’t crack 90 wins and missed the playoffs for the first time in four years. He was going to fill at least one of our holes, second base, with a rookie named Dustin Pedroia. But when I talked with him, I asked for more pitching.

As long as I had Manny batting behind me, it was going to be hard for any team to deal with our lineup. Manny had gone through another round of trade requests in 2006, and once again the Red Sox had decided that he was too valuable for a swap. It was going to be at least one more year of Manny being Manny in Boston. I told Theo that if we could get another starter and more help in the bullpen, there was no reason why we couldn’t get back to the playoffs and the World Series. I didn’t think we were that far away.

I felt like I was seeing our team in a similar way to how Theo did. Then he surprised me. It turned out he was seeing players who hadn’t even crossed my mind. One of them was a celebrated pitcher from Japan named Daisuke Matsuzaka. There was a lot of hype around him before he ever threw a major league pitch. Because of the multiple pitches and flawless control that he supposedly had, some people had started calling him “the Greg Maddux of Japan.”

What made Matsuzaka more intriguing was the process required to sign him. Each interested team had to declare how much it was willing to spend in a blind bid. Brian Cashman, the GM of the Yankees, put in a bid of $33 million. Theo’s was $51.1 million. Once again, there was that easy money with players who hadn’t proven a thing in Boston. The Red Sox were willing to give up stacks of cash simply to negotiate with him, and they’d have to give up a lot more when it was time for the actual contract. I felt many emotions, all at the same time: awed, unappreciated, hopeful. This is how I can explain that. Awed because the Red Sox and Yankees had combined to bid $84 million on a pitcher who might be able to pitch in the big leagues; unappreciated because I brought more than “designated hitter” to the Red Sox and they knew it, yet at contract time I was just a DH; hopeful because, hey, all would be good with me if we won.

By the time we got to spring training, our spending spree had brought in Dice-K, Julio Lugo, J. D. Drew, J. C. Romero, and Hideki Okajima. The pitchers weren’t the only new additions to the staff. There was also a new pitching coach, John Farrell, who had left a front-office job in Cleveland to be on the field daily with Tito Francona, one of his best friends.

Sometimes the spring can tell you right away what kind of chemistry you’re going to have as a team. I knew we had a good balance immediately, and I didn’t figure it out due to something deep. It was actually our response to silliness that let me know our collective personality was accepting and relaxed. It began with, of all things, a car auction. A story had been going around that Manny, who loved collecting vintage cars, was trying to sell a classic Lincoln Continental. He was scheduled to be at an auction in New Jersey when he was supposed to be at spring training in Florida. Instead of flipping out, it seemed that everyone had some laughs with it, and as it turned out, Manny arrived in camp when he was supposed to.

A month later, Manny was at it again. Once again, the “incident” inspired more comedy than frustration. This time he was putting a gas grill on eBay, along with an autographed baseball. The bids for it didn’t approach Dice-K levels, but they went as high as eBay would allow before the gas grill was eventually withdrawn from the site.

We left Fort Myers with smiles, and there wouldn’t be many occasions all season that would make us want to change them. I was impressed with a couple of our new players, for completely different reasons. The rookie second baseman, Pedroia, worried me at first. I’d watch him struggle at the plate and think, Damn, I don’t know if he’s gonna make it. There was a stretch in April and May when he went 5-for-42 for a .119 batting average. Then he did something that I’ve never seen. He went on a 35-for-76 tear, good for a .460 batting average.

I’m not joking: I hadn’t seen it before. Every night it would be two hits, three hits, four hits. He was incredible. And I’m not just talking about catching fire. To me, Pedroia is the prototype. I’d never met anyone like him in baseball. It’s hard to explain. For example, I love baseball. Love it. But what I saw from Pedroia made it clear to me that his connection to baseball was beyond everyone else’s. It was so much more than just love for the game. He was the game. Seriously. Everything that was good and true about baseball was in Dustin Pedroia. He breathed it. He lived it. He’d do anything to play it, to be around it, to talk about it. He was such a force of energy, talent, and humor that it lifted our entire clubhouse.

It didn’t surprise me that Pedroia was the kind of guy who would play when he was hurt. Eventually, I had to tell him not to. I explained that no one outside of the clubhouse would appreciate his effort, and even if they did, he wasn’t helping himself or us by going out there at 60 or 70 percent. Look, the fact that the conversation needed to happen tells you about the commitment to the game the kid had.

Another talented player, totally different from Pedroia, was J. D. Drew. Hold on, because you’re going to think I’m just messing around when I tell you this: when J.D. wanted to play, he was the best player I’ve ever seen. No bullshit. Listen, I said, when he wanted to play, he was the best.

The problem was that he could be hot, in a 15-for-20 groove, and you could tell him that you were giving him a couple of days off. He’d take it, without a protest. That’s how he was. I don’t think he enjoyed being out there every day, but when he wanted to be, he was one of the best ever, both offensively and defensively. He was a five-tool player, and very smart. He was quiet, always reading. Personality-wise, it was like an English teacher had been turned into a baseball player.

He wasn’t into any crap, and when we would do our clubhouse pranks, he’d be like, “Oh, come on, man.” A great, laid-back guy. But I’ll be real with you: some days I wanted to kill him. I had some days when I would say, “Really, you’re not going to play because of that?” Some days he would come out of the game because his left nut was hurting. It made no sense sometimes, but that’s how he was. Theo is a stats guy, and that’s why he loved J.D. But the organization had to have known everything about what they were going to get when they gave him $70 million over five years.

As we got deep into the season, though, the only numbers that mattered were the ones that told the story of us and the Yankees. We started having fun in spring training, and by the Fourth of July we had an 11-game lead in the division. Three weeks later, we were in the middle of a stretch of games in which we’d win eight of nine.

But that wasn’t the only good news. On July 23, we beat the Indians in Cleveland, and our starter and winner was 23-year-old Jon Lester. He’d worked his way through six chemotherapy treatments to beat cancer and resume his baseball career. He was such a gifted pitcher and sincere person. Our whole team had worried about him the previous September when he’d received his diagnosis. It was inspiring to see him out there, in front of his mom and dad, pitching with such purpose and power. I can tell you, for sure, that this was no ordinary game in July.

Along the way to the playoffs, we had a few moments that stood out.

There was always a question about Manny, and speculation on when he would go through a swoon and not be available to the team for a chunk of time. On August 25, we played a game in New York against the Yankees. We began the night with an eight-game lead in the division, but that wasn’t enough to allow us to exhale against a team like New York. Manny hit a home run, his 20th of the season, and drove in a run, his 86th. I also drove in a run that game, number 88 of the season. But then, while my numbers continued to progress during the rest of the baseball season, Manny’s stayed right there. He didn’t play for the next month due to what he said was a knee injury. With so many fan questions about his commitment over the years, even a legitimate Manny injury was cause for skepticism. The time to check in with Manny again was the postseason.

Before that, there were several reasons for Red Sox enthusiasm, especially for fans interested in the future stars of the franchise. Pedroia had been hitting consistently all season and would be the American League Rookie of the Year. Jonathan Papelbon was one of the best closers in baseball. Josh Beckett made the year-one to year-two adjustment with AL hitters, and that was enough for him to dominate them all season. A young man that I called El Flaco (the Skinny Man), Clay Buchholz, threw a no-hitter against the Orioles. Jacoby Ellsbury, the center fielder drafted in Johnny Damon’s final Red Sox season, made his debut. He was phenomenal, so much so that he provided an immediate threat to Coco Crisp’s job. And while Dice-K didn’t reach Greg Maddux levels, he was pretty good as a rookie. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t blow people away here like he did in Japan. This is major league baseball. I know there are some good players in Japan, but there’s no way the variety of pitchers and hitters there is equal to what we have in the majors.

I wasn’t much for talking about the future when there were championships to be won right then and there, but I started to understand some things better after playing, listening, and watching during the 2007 season. I had new insight into why Theo was so protective of his territory in baseball operations. These kids he’d drafted or signed were all fun players to watch. I couldn’t imagine scouting and developing all this talent and then being told what you could or couldn’t do with it. I also got a better grasp of why the fans were so excited about the future. The kids slid right into the team culture, so it was natural to project what they were going to be when they matured as players, and how long they’d be staying in Boston.

Personally, I felt that everything I cared about was coming together and fitting together. On the field, I didn’t think any pitcher was capable of fooling me for long. I’d lock myself in a room studying video if I had to figure out what the approach was against me. Once I got it, I relied on my memory and instincts to handle everything else. Although I didn’t hit as many home runs as the previous season, I was a better hitter. My average rose to a career high .332, I was on base 44 percent of the time, and I slugged at a .621 percentage.

I felt confident about what I was doing, and I didn’t mind sharing what I knew. If I had a friend on another team and I could see him having problems with his swing or something, I’d tell him. This is a hard game. If I could help out a friend, I’d do it. Another way I shared was through a book. A Boston sportswriter, Tony Massarotti, asked me in 2006 if I wanted to tell my story. I’d told him yes because I knew my story and it was a positive one. I’d overcome a lot to get where I was, and I wanted to pass that information on to someone who might need inspiration. That book was published in 2007 by St. Martin’s Press.

My popularity began to reach levels that required a new routine with my agents of sorting through endorsement offers, business-partnership proposals, and requests to make appearances. I appreciated the love, but there had been something normal about the days when I’d pull up to the Lenox Hotel in Boston, begin to park my car there, and then be instructed by one of the valets, “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t leave your car here. You’ll have to go somewhere else.” Back then, it would take another valet to say, “Hey, I think that’s David Ortiz. He can stay.” It was fine to be recognized by some and not others. I used to walk down Boylston Street all the time, strolling along without ever being stopped.

Those days were over. It was time for Tiffany and me to start thinking about moving again. We wanted to be in a community where we weren’t isolated from people. We wanted our kids to go to public schools and have solid relationships with their friends, just like anyone else their age. Yet we also wanted to have the type of privacy where, if we decided to go outside, there wouldn’t be a car stopping to point or people coming up to ring the doorbell. Overall, these were not problems. Not at all. They were just considerations we had to take more seriously than we ever had in the past.

I had no idea that the postseason was going to push my popularity—and the team’s—to 2004 levels. We’d begun our 2004 playoff run by sweeping the Angels, and we did the same thing in 2007. Manny was back in the lineup, and I felt the difference instantly. It puts managers, pitching coaches, and pitchers in an uncomfortable position when they’re dealing with a combo like Manny and me. In the Angels series, I had eight at-bats in three games with six walks and two home runs. My homers came in Games 1 and 3. Manny’s eight at-bats produced five walks and two more home runs. He homered in Game 2 for a walk-off winner, and again in the third game to leave a mark in the series.

We were on to the league championship series to play the Indians. We needed every bit of our experience and luck and the contributions of every coach and player on the roster in this series. I say that because four games into the series, we were in trouble. We were down three games to one, with Beckett on the mound to save us in Game 5.

Beckett was a boss that night. The more he pitched, sharp and fearless, the more apparent it was that the loud Cleveland crowd wouldn’t see their team clinching anything that night. Beckett had emerged as our ace in the regular season, winning 20 games, and he iced the biggest game of the whole year by giving up just a run while striking out 11.

Back at Fenway, there was still some nervousness about being eliminated in Game 6. That melted in the first inning when J. D. Drew came to the plate with the bases loaded. The fans hadn’t been wild about J.D. all year. His numbers, across the board, were average. It may have burned him some whenever he struck out, but he’d never let the crowd see that side of him. What most people respected about him was his ability to draw a walk when necessary. That was a thought when he faced Fausto Carmona with two outs in the bottom of the first. Anything to push a run across.

Then it happened. I was on first base, so I saw everything.

On a 3–1 count, often a take pitch for J.D., Carmona threw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. I knew what Carmona was thinking. He needed a strike, he didn’t want to walk in a run, and J.D. was a patient hitter. Maybe he thought J.D. would take that one too. But the pitch was too good to pass on. J.D. swung and drove it deep to center field. He hit it well, he knew it, and so did the Fenway crowd. He got his loudest ovation of the year when the long drive reached the camera well in center and officially became a grand slam. I had never seen J.D. so pumped, and it was good to see. I waited to greet him at the plate and yelled over the crowd, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” That’s the playoffs summed up in that one at-bat. Sometimes you’re struggling and no one is thinking about you, and in one swing of the bat you put yourself right back on the map.

We knew we were going to win the game right then. And I couldn’t see any way where we’d lose a Game 7 at Fenway, with starting pitcher Dice-K on the mound. It was a great game, but it wasn’t the game we expected. I knew we’d win the pennant, but I didn’t think it would happen with a six-run eighth, on our way to an 11–2 win.

As for the World Series, when I ask Tiffany what she remembers from it, she talks about all our friends. I think that’s the side of baseball that’s most memorable. I obsessively prepared for all the games, and I gave everything I had to the game every season that I played. I remember all the big hits and spectacular plays. But I’m with Tiffany: it’s the people moments, the relationships, that stay with you forever.

So do I remember playing the Colorado Rockies in the World Series and sweeping them? Without a doubt. I remember how Beckett, the ALCS MVP, pitched like an MVP in Game 1 of the Series. In a tighter Game 2, I remember Papelbon picking off Matt Holliday for the third out of the eighth in a 2–1 game. When we got to Denver, it was all about the kids again. Four hits at the top of the lineup for Ellsbury and three for Pedroia. The winning pitcher was Dice-K.

But this is what I mean by relationships. The winning pitcher in Game 4 was Jon Lester, who I’d prayed about at the end of 2006. Cancer. Who knew, in September 2006, if Lester had pitched his final game in the majors? He was the story of 2006 because he had gotten sick. He was the story of 2007 because he had not only fought cancer and overcome it, but come back to accomplish the hardest thing in the sport: winning your last game of the season so your team can win the final game of the season. Seeing him out there meant a lot to me. Like Pedroia, Lester was one of the young guys who had no sense of entitlement. He was a good listener, and I could see that he was modeling himself after Beckett. It was our established ace, Beckett, who began the Series and our future ace who ended it.

It was a blessing to be a part of that night and that team. I remember going back to our Denver hotel after the game and sitting in the lobby with representatives from all aspects of the team. The owners were there with their wives and kids. The coaches and players, the doctors and trainers. We were all there, and a team executive, Charles Steinberg, was playing the piano. He knew what he was doing with those keys. He’d finish one song and I’d want him to play another one. He had started with “Yesterday” and “And I Love Her” from the Beatles. It was an organizational sing-along at that point, and it went from the Beatles to Elton John to Billy Joel to James Taylor. I remember being surprised when Charles told me that he composed and played his own music as well. And then he played it. Time didn’t matter at that point. It was the Red Sox at our best, all of us singing, laughing, and swaying along.

I’ll always remember those nights, bigger than baseball nights.