David Ortiz Is Going to Live Forever

A few years ago, I found myself at Baltimore's Camden Yards when the Red Sox were playing. A few innings into the game, David Ortiz hit a home run down the first-base line, to where we were sitting. The ball passed high overhead and—and I swear this is true—when I play back the moment in my mind, I hear the sound of jet engines as the ball rockets over us. Ortiz didn't hit mere home runs; they were flyovers.

Yesterday, 19 years and 521 flyovers into his career, David Ortiz announced that the 2016 season would be his last. There have been greater Red Sox players, greater Red Sox hitters, and maybe even greater DHs, but it is nearly impossible to recall a single player who has had a larger effect on a team and a region than Ortiz has in Boston.

More than just about any player, Ortiz was responsible for ending the 86-year World Series drought, a serial futility Red Sox fans passed from generation to generation (copyright Red Sox Fans, 1986, 1978, 1967). Ortiz lifted that heavy inevitability not through the judicious application of Magic World Series Fairy Dust but through absolutely hitting the cover off the ball. Since coming to Boston 13 seasons ago, Ortiz has hit .288/.385/.566. Crazy good, but come October he's even better: .297/.421/.571 in 73 Red Sox playoff games.

During the 2004 playoffs, when it could not have mattered more, Ortiz hit .400/.515/.764, including two game-winning, season-saving hits against the rival Yankees in 24 hours. Then, three years later, he did it again. The 2007 playoffs followed a similar script: the Red Sox blow out the Angels in the division series, fall behind in the ALCS, this time three games to one against Cleveland, then come roaring back and blow right through whatever sacrificial squad the National League put in their path. Ortiz, again, hit a barely human .370/.508/.696. Six years after that, Ortiz once more helped lead the Red Sox to a title. This time he hit .353/.500/.706 during the playoffs. I picture some old mystic in a cloak saying, "The only way to break this curse is for the Red Sox to pick up some washed-out slugger cut by the Twins and have him OPS 1.200 in the playoffs and World Series three times over a ten year span. Good luck!" Then the mystic disappears in a cloud of dry ice and laughter.

After his 13 years and innumerable memorable moments with the team, it's difficult to imagine the Red Sox without Ortiz. He is them just as they are him; this, as the man said, is his fucking city. The pictures of Ortiz in a Twins uniform from the first few seasons of his career are just the strangest thing, like remembering when Derek Jeter began his career with the Diamondbacks. You don't remember that because it didn't happen, which is how I feel about David Ortiz wearing any uniform other than that of the Red Sox. You can show me all the doctored photographs you want and tell me how the angle from the book depository wasn't quite right and I'm not going to believe a damn bit of it.

Ortiz's idiosyncratic swing, his broad and warm smile, and his uncanny ability to somehow speak his mind without saying something disastrous in a city that employs numerous reporters to follow baseball players around with fake doggy-doo—this will all be missed. The very concept of the Sox without Ortiz is bizarre.

But, of course, that's how these things work. Hell, that's how all things work. We all start young, secure in the belief that we'll never be old, that things will never change, or that at least we'll see that change coming, like a Judd Apatow hero who trades in his bong rig for a pair of Dockers and an office job. Then you wake up and you're not young anymore, and David Ortiz is announcing his intention to retire, and holy shit where did the time go, nothing will ever be the same. None of it is final until it is.

If nothing else, David Ortiz has ensured his legacy in the hearts and minds of Red Sox fans. He's done a lot more than that, of course, but this is not a small thing. Memories of his sonic-boom homers and supernova Octobers will be passed down from generation to generation throughout New England, by flinty people who otherwise have evolved not to experience emotions; it will be one of the few such things that won't lead to undue sadness and a high rate of liver failure.

For one year more, though, Ortiz remains. When April rolls around, he'll be in his familiar spot in the batting order. When his name is announced on the loudspeaker, he'll get his customary and well-earned applause, and when the pitcher's pitch meets his bat with extreme prejudice and ends up a souvenir that some kid will use to impress decades' worth of friends, the standing ovation will be as deafening as a flyover on opening day.

David Ortiz has more than 500 homers. He has three World Series rings. He has MVP votes, and more All-Star appearances than a person could reasonably be expected to remember. Right now, he also has something more valuable than all of that. He has time. One season, to be exact, before the end comes—one season to enjoy everything about the game he loves so dearly one final time. We should all be so lucky.