The Red Sox might never have landed David Ortiz if Pedro Martinez hadn’t made a move that, at the time, looked small and turned out to be enormous.
Martinez said in an interview with Bleacher Report and TNT Sports that he pushed hard to bring Ortiz to Boston after the Minnesota Twins released him before the 2003 season. The two happened to see each other at a restaurant in the offseason, and Martinez immediately started working the phones to make sure Boston didn’t let him slip away.
“I ended up calling [Larry] Lucchino, Theo [Epstein] and everybody and everybody. And I couldn't get ahold of them.
They were in the Winter Meeting trying to sign a first baseman,” Martinez said. “I'm pushing the phone to see if I can get David in before they make a decision.
I finally get ahold of the traveling secretary, Jack McCormick... I said...
'I just want the Red Sox to pick up David. He just got released and I don't want any other team to see him.'”
Boston got him, and the rest is franchise history.
Ortiz wasn’t yet the player Red Sox fans would come to know. He had spent six seasons in Minnesota and had put up a respectable but unspectacular line there, hitting .266/.348/.461 with 108 doubles and 58 home runs. But Martinez said he saw something bigger after Ortiz drove one of his cutters into the upper deck at the Metrodome.
Once Ortiz arrived in Boston, everything took off. Over 14 seasons with the Red Sox, he hit .290/.386/.570 with 524 doubles, 483 home runs and 1,530 RBI. He earned MVP votes in eight of those 14 years, and every one of his 10 All-Star selections and seven Silver Slugger awards came in Boston.
That production, and that timing, changed everything for the Red Sox. Martinez and Ortiz became two of the defining figures in franchise history, both Hall of Famers and both central to ending Boston’s title drought and winning the 2004 World Series. Ortiz later helped deliver two more World Series championships on his own, with Martinez no longer there.
Martinez’s story makes one thing clear: Boston didn’t just get lucky with Ortiz. It got lucky that Martinez was there to recognize him first.
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