Larry Brown Sports

David Ortiz is off to the best start of his career with the Boston Red Sox. A notoriously slow starter in April, Big Papi is hitting .381 with 17 RBI and four home runs through only 16 games. He missed the first 15 games of the season because of an Achilles’ injury that stemmed back to last July, but the 37-year-old returned without missing a beat.

Since Ortiz’s hot start in 2013 is unusual for a player his age who normally comes crawling out of the gate, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe decided he would be the first one to bring up the steroid talk — despite the fact that Ortiz has only appeared in 16 games.

Hitting is not this easy. Athletes do not get better as they mature into their late 30s. Baseball has been peppered with performance-enhancing drugs for the last 20 years. The cheaters are always ahead of the testers. A number of players from the Dominican Republic have tested positive for steroids. Injuries to the Achilles’ tendon are consistent with steroid use. It is not natural for a guy to hit .426 out of the gate without the benefit of any spring training.

Of course, Shaughnessy pointed to the fact that Ortiz’s name appeared on a list of players who tested positive back in 2003. That being said, he has not failed a drug test in the last 10 years. If you think Ortiz is using performance-enhancing drugs, you must think either Major League Baseball is covering for him or he has found a way to cheat the system.

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Like the Bruins before them, the Red Sox spent a good deal of time before their opening pitch on Saturday paying tribute to those who were affected by the Boston Marathon bombings. The organization held a moment of silence for those who lost their lives and gave recognition to the first responders, local heroes and law enforcement.

David Ortiz was then given the floor.

Ortiz, who happened to be making his return from the disabled list, thanked Boston’s city officials and police department. He then decided no one was going to stop him from speaking directly from the heart.

“This is our f****** city,” Ortiz said loud and clear on national television. “And nobody’s going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong.”

If there was ever an appropriate time to drop an F-bomb on live TV in front of 38,000 people, this was it. The city of Boston — and the entire country — has had an incredibly long and difficult week. Maybe Ortiz planned it and maybe he didn’t, but there’s no better player to drop an F-bomb on behalf of a city than Big Papi.

Bobby Valentine was a dead man walking the day the Boston Red Sox announced he would be their next manager last winter. Not only was he the wrong man for the job, but I highly doubt anyone would have been able to clean up Boston’s mess and lead a playoff charge. The Red Sox won only 69 games and finished in last in the AL East, and David Ortiz feels that Valentine was one of the main reasons why.

“A lot of players had a lot of issues with our manager last year,’’ Ortiz said according to ESPNBoston.com. “We have a new manager this year, a guy who is familiar with the organization, a guy we pretty much grew up around him. That’s John [Farrell].

“A team is like a human body. If the head is right, the body is going to function right, but if the head is messed up, then the body is going to be all over the place. It seems like that was part of our situation last year. Guys weren’t comfortable with the manager we had. Guys were struggling. Even in situations as a player you need to handle better, sometimes you get confused and get caught in a situation where you don’t know how you’re going to react with them.”

Ortiz was one of the few players who defended Valentine early on last year, but their relationship has since gone south thanks to Valentine’s claim that Ortiz had no interest in trying at the end of last season. Big Papi went on to say that he was concerned about Valentine’s approach during spring training last year, when the former manager had what Ortiz thought was an unorthodox style in leading drills and workouts.

Here’s what needs to happen in Boston: when players are asked about Bobby V., they need to tell reporters than he’s not there anymore and the team is moving forward. There should be no comparing Valentine and Farrell. Last year was one to forget in Boston. It’s time to turn the page.

Photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

A little over a week ago, Bobby Valentine made his first public appearance since being fired as manager of the Boston Red Sox. As expected, he had plenty to say. Bobby V.’s comments about David Ortiz quitting on the team were easily the most noteworthy thing he said during his interview with Bob Costas. Ortiz responded to that accusation on Monday.

For starters, Big Papi said the decision for him to shut it down for the season after returning from the disabled list was one made by team doctors and had nothing to do with the megadeal between the Red Sox and Dodgers. Then, he had the following to say to ESPNDeportes.com about his former manager.

No. 3, after he went on national TV to say what he said, he sent me a text message trying to tell me that it was the media trying to change things. I did not respond to the message and I said to myself, this guy must have some mental issues or needs medicine or something? I said, I am dealing with someone crazy and I am not going to drive myself crazy, so it is better if I leave it alone.”

It’s easy to understand where Ortiz is coming from. The media didn’t try to twist anything. Valentine made the comments and there was only one way to interpret them. In addition to that, Ortiz was one of the few players who reportedly defended Bobby V. toward the beginning of the season when people were calling for his head. If Valentine made me look bad on national television for seemingly no reason, I wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say either.

Photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

Former Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine appeared on “Costas Tonight” with Bob Costas on Monday night in his first interview since the team fired him following the season. Since Boston parted ways with Valentine, we have been waiting see who he will blame for the abysmal season Red Sox fans just endured.

To his credit, Bobby V. blamed himself above all others and told Costas, “It was my fault.” However, he did take some time to throw David Ortiz under the bus. Valentine said Ortiz gave up on the season after Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto were traded to the Dodgers.

“David Ortiz came back after spending about six weeks on the disabled list and we thought it was only going to be a week,” Valentine said. “He got two hits the first two times up, drove in a couple runs; we were off to the races. Then he realized that this trade meant that we’re not going to run this race and we’re not even going to finish the race properly and he decided not to play anymore. I think at that time it was all downhill from there.”

As Matthew Pouliot of Hardball Talk pointed out, the Red Sox were 60-66 when Ortiz returned from the disabled list. He certainly would have added pop to the lineup, but how many wins can a DH account for? The fact that he was hot in his first few plate appearances hardly means Boston was “off to the races.”

Ortiz did a great job of acting if he truly didn’t hurt himself while running out a double, but that’s beside the point. If Valentine is telling the truth and Ortiz gave up, that is obviously a bush league move and not something a leader would do. It does not, however, mean the end result would have been any different. Check out Bobby V.’s full interview below:

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David Ortiz has primarily been a DH since signing with the Red Sox in 2003, but he recently said he thinks he could be a full-time first baseman.

“Man, the way I feel this year, I feel like I can go play first base in the National League,” Ortiz told the Boston Herald.

“When I play first base, I like to joke around so I can get the pressure away from me. But it’s fun to me,” Ortiz told the Herald. “I’m not as bad as people think I am. People see you DHing the whole time and they think you’re just going to go out there and screw things up. I’ll tell you straight-up: I’m not going to be all-fantasy, but you hit that ball where I can reach it, I’m going to catch it.”

Ortiz said he was approached by some NL teams last offseason but his priority was to remain with the Red Sox, so he agreed to a one-year deal with them in arbitration. His latest comments make it seem like he won’t be as kind to Boston this offseason.

Ortiz has been having trouble with the Boston media over the past few weeks, and he’s indicated he’s sick of things in the city. He also recently stated that he was humiliated with Boston’s one-year offer to him last offseason. If you put everything together, it all adds up to Ortiz wanting out of Boston, or driving up the price on them at the least. Given the way he’s been hitting this season, several NL teams are sure to be interested.

Every team in the MLB has been waiting for David Ortiz to fall off the face of the planet for the last two or three seasons, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Just when it appeared he was washed up in 2010, Ortiz erased an abysmal start by putting up huge power numbers in the second half and finished with solid numbers despite a low batting average. Since then, he has been the Ortiz of old. Big Papi is hitting .302 this season and already has 22 homers and 55 RBIs. At age 36, he is somehow on pace for one of the best years of his career.

Despite his success over the past few seasons, Ortiz continues to have to play on a one-year contract. He and the Red Sox flirted with arbitration this past offseason before agreeing to a one-year, $14.575 million deal. That doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, but from the sound of it the experience left a lasting foul taste in the mouth of Boston’s favorite slugger.

“It was humiliating,” he told Jorge L. Ortiz of the USA Today in Spanish. “There’s no reason a guy like me should go through that. All I was looking for was two years, at the same salary … and look at my numbers this year. Tell me if they wouldn’t have been better off. And yet they don’t hesitate to sign other guys, it was embarrassing.

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