5 great moments from the Ortiz-Yankees rivalry
If ever there was a player born for the expressed task of making the New York Yankees miserable, it was David Ortiz - and even he knows it.
"Some players are born to be Yankees," Ortiz wrote Tuesday on the Players' Tribune ahead of his final series at Yankee Stadium. "I was born to play against the Yankees."
Since joining the Boston Red Sox as an unheralded free agent on a one-year, $1.25-million deal in 2003, Ortiz has become a 14-year nightmare for Yankees fans. His presence literally changed the history of the historic Red Sox-Yankees rivalry while producing plenty of memorable moments. He'll likely be roundly booed - and perhaps even mooned - by Yankees fans throughout this week's showdown, but there's no denying he left a large impact on New York through his play and heroics over the years.
Before Ortiz takes his final cuts in the Bronx, here's a look back at five great moments from the Ortiz-Yankees rivalry.
Sept. 1, 2000: 1st homer at Yankee Stadium
Nobody in the stands on this night could've known they were witnessing history when Ortiz - wearing No. 27 on his pinstriped Minnesota Twins jersey - smacked a solo home run off Orlando Hernandez several rows deep into old Yankee Stadium's right-center field bleachers that didn't change the game's outcome (New York won 4-2). "He is not a home run hitter," Yankees announcer Michael Kay remarked about Ortiz's eighth homer of the 2000 campaign, "but boy, he got a hold of one right there." If only Kay had known then: Of Ortiz's 53 career homers against the Yankees, 31 have been hit in the Bronx.
July 26, 2003: Birth of a nation's hero
Ortiz's first of oh so many walk-offs in a Red Sox uniform came, naturally, against the Yankees. Sent to the plate as a pinch-hitter for Damian Jackson, Ortiz smoked Armando Benitez's offering off the Green Monster, scoring Jeremy Giambi - who, ironically, was the man Ortiz replaced as Boston's primary designated hitter - and sending Fenway into a frenzy. If he wasn't already a fan favorite in Boston, this hit clinched it.
Sept. 15, 2016: Passing 'The Mick'
Ortiz is up to 540 home runs, and unless he hits eight more in these last six games he'll finish in 17th place on the all-time list. How fitting, then, that homer No. 537 - which moved him past Mickey Mantle on the list - came against Mantle's Yankees. It's almost like he planned it.
October 2003: The first ALCS
Though it was perhaps the rare time he couldn't save the Red Sox, Ortiz gave the Yankees a taste of what was to come during the contentious 2003 ALCS. Although he hit just .269 for the series, he came up big in Game 6 with a game-tying RBI single, then came around to score the winning run. The next night he took David Wells deep in the eighth inning of Game 7, giving Boston a 5-2 lead that looked like it would be enough for the pennant - until Grady Little's (lack of) bullpen management helped cough that up. Ortiz appeared to get another Red Sox rally going with a 10th-inning double off Mariano Rivera but he was stranded at second; one inning later, Aaron Boone extended the Red Sox championship drought to 86 years.
October 2004: The comeback
One year after the infamous 2003 collapse, the Yankees and Red Sox met in the 2004 ALCS - and Big Papi made sure that wouldn't happen again. With the Yankees up 3-0 in the series Boston rallied off Rivera in the ninth to stave off elimination. Three innings later, Ortiz faced Paul Quantrill and began writing his legend ...
... Two nights later, he made sure Johnny Damon kept on running to New York with a 14th-inning walkoff single to end Game 5 ...
... And finally, his first-inning shot into the porch off Kevin Brown in Game 7 gave the Red Sox a lead they wouldn't relinquish, as they became the first team in baseball history to erase a 3-0 deficit and win a series, en route to the first Red Sox championship in 86 years. Naturally, the series MVP went to Ortiz.
(Videos courtesy: MLB.com)