Twins gift Ortiz peanut butter in homage to epic prank

A few of David Ortiz's old friends had a little fun at his expense prior to his final series in Minnesota.

The Twins, who released Ortiz after the 2002 season, then watched as he became a future Hall of Famer with the Boston Red Sox, held a pregame ceremony to honor the retiring slugger at Target Field. Four of his former Twins teammates - Corey Koskie, LaTroy Hawkins, Torii Hunter, and Eddie Guardado - along with former manager Ron Gardenhire, presented Ortiz with his retirement gift from the team.

The gift was a jar of peanut butter.

While that may seem like a strange gift, there's actually some meaning behind it. The gift is an homage to a famous prank pulled on him by Koskie, who once filled his underwear with peanut butter.

"In the middle of a game, (Koskie) went back into the clubhouse to David’s locker and lined his underwear with peanut butter," Hunter wrote in the Players' Tribune in January. "After the game, we were all sitting in the clubhouse, and David came out of the showers, went to his locker and started getting dressed. He was talking to us - he was always talking - as he was getting dressed, so when he slid his tightie-whities on, he didn’t even realize that there was a lot of peanut butter in there."

Related: Ortiz hangs with ex-Twins teammates before nightcap

When the peanut butter jokes were finished, the Twins also honored Ortiz with a donation to "Puckett Scholars" at the University of Minnesota, made in memory of Twins legend Kirby Puckett, who was a favorite of Big Papi's.

Ortiz hit .266/.348/.461 with 58 home runs as a member of the Twins from 1997-2002, but only played over 100 games in two of his six seasons with the club.