After Sunday’s news that former Boston Red Sox star turned MLB on Fox analyst David Ortiz was shot and hospitalized in the Dominican Republic, much of the baseball world was thinking about Ortiz. Monday saw Ortiz fly to Boston and undergo a second surgery, and his wife Tiffany said in a statement released through the Red Sox that he’s in stable condition.
MLB Network analyst Pedro Martinez, a long-time friend of Ortiz and a teammate of his from 2003-04 with the Red Sox, gave an emotional speech about what Ortiz means to him and to baseball on MLBN Monday night:
“There is something that I must say about David. David has been this strong, happy person, someone that’s used to perseverance, a great role model to society, to baseball, in general as a human being, a great father. I don’t have enough words to describe who David Ortiz is, what David means to baseball. But I’m so disappointed to know that someone like David who’s saved so many lives can have someone after his life.”
“And…I’m sorry, but it hurts me. It hurts me. A guy that saves lives. Everybody that works, everybody that goes out there every day…whoever gets to any job wants to get to what David got, to success in life, to be a role model, to be that person that everybody wants to see. To see someone just want to take his life away in such a coward’s, it bothers me. It bothers me deeply.”
“And I feel for David like a brother, like a family member, like a colleague, like a teammate. My relationship I know is beyond what everybody else gets, but I just can’t take it. And I’m sitting here with you guys and trying to have fun, but my heart is with David, with his family, with everybody that cares about David. Because there’s just one coward out there that wanted to do that to someone that didn’t deserve it. There’s no place or space to have that against anybody’s life, especially someone like David who’s working so hard, who had worked so hard his entire career to actually help so many other lives and serve as a role model.”
Our thoughts go out to Martinez, and to the rest of Ortiz’s friends and family during this difficult time.
[MLB Network on Twitter]