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What David Ortiz’s last season tells us about how he’ll be remembered

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Ortiz is not the only local sports hero to make an important contribution outside the lines.Jim Davis/Globe Staff

It might seem wildly off base to suggest that an event in mid-July demonstrated David Ortiz's unprecedented status among iconic Boston athletes, given the Red Sox slugger's already teeming resume of clutch, franchise-altering October performances.

Moreover, it had little to do with Ortiz's statistically historic season for a 40-year-old — which is shaping up to be an emphatic exclamation point at the end of a Hall-of-Fame-worthy career.

No, it was something that happened before a game on July 19, a day when the nation was reeling from a wave of racially charged violence. Boston police officers, elected leaders, and clergy had assembled on the field at Fenway Park for a moment of silence. But when the announcer called on "our leader, to whom we have turned so many times when the chips were down," it was Ortiz who stepped up to the mic.

His message — "Let's be kind to each other, and choose love" — wasn't as profound as the confirmation it represented of Ortiz's role as a civic leader.

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And that, more than anything, indicates why Big Papi has a chance to figure more prominently in Boston after he plays his last game than other local sports legends have.

In this city, the biggest superstars tend to avoid the spotlight when the stadium lights go down. Carl Yastrzemski only reluctantly makes appearances; Larry Bird says he still loves Boston, but we seldom see him when the team he runs, the Indiana Pacers, isn't playing here; Bill Russell and Boston kept each other at arm's length for decades until a recent rapprochement; Bobby Orr, who has handled the glow of retirement as well as anyone, is a distant enough memory that young hockey players have trouble recognizing him.

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But Ortiz goes out of his way to make waves. When, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Ortiz punctuated his exhortation to a city scarred by terror by shouting an expletive on live TV, the Federal Communications Commission didn't censure him, it applauded him.

Ortiz is not the only local sports hero to make an important contribution outside the lines — he's not even the greatest Red Sox hitter to do it, not in a world that included Ted Williams, who served in two wars and tirelessly campaigned on behalf of the Jimmy Fund.

Speaking of the Splendid Splinter: Ortiz, while nowhere near as foul-tempered as Williams, has occasionally come off as petty when grumbling about the official scorer or complaining about his contract . Williams was a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer; Big Papi’s worthiness as a candidate for baseball’s most venerated shrine has been the subject of debate, in no small part because of the allegation of performance-enhancing drug use that he has never cleared up. Another thing regarding Williams: Ortiz refuses to believe that Teddy Ballgame really hit a ball 502 feet, to a spot in the right field bleachers marked by a red seat, a target Papi has been unable to reach, even while taking aim in batting practice.

Where Ortiz tops Ted is the seemingly limitless enthusiasm with which he embraces his role as an all-star ambassador.

It came out July 18 at a gala for his charity, which raises money to help children in New England and his native Dominican Republic get access to critical pediatric care. Ortiz spoke, without notes, and "had the audience eating out of his hand," according to the Globe's Red Sox beat writer, Peter Abraham.

It came out again two days later, when Ortiz played cheerleader-in-chief during Boston's 11-7 defeat of San Francisco. Big Papi high-fived and hugged the hero of the game, the oft-maligned Hanley Ramirez, jumping up and down on aching, aging feet and legs, and wearing an oversize smile, like a father at a Little League game.

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It comes out in the little moments before games, when Ortiz chats amiably in Spanish with stadium employees who call out from the seats, or jokes with a woman on crutches about their respective leg ailments.

It helps Ortiz's legacy that his last season is full of moments when he backed up his supersize persona with legendary feats on the field. There was the time in April when he told a sick child he was going to hit a home run for him and then did it.

There was the time he defied the elements in a July 19 game, the night of his "Choose love" speech. In his first at bat, Ortiz hit a ball that died on the warning track, knocked down by a ferocious wind. On his way back to the dugout, Papi pointed an accusing finger into the breeze, as though issuing a challenge to Aeolus himself. His next at bat, with his very next swing, Ortiz drove a 442-foot laser out of the park, a three-run home run that figured prominently in a 4-0 Red Sox win.

Two days later, while launching his usual array of bombs in batting practice, Ortiz hit a ball so hard it got stuck in the metal grill of the right-field foul pole, 302 feet away. The pole bears the name of Johnny Pesky, another beloved Red Sox luminary, whose failure to throw the ball in a critical moment is the only dent in his armor; Ortiz is so strong that the ball he unleashed put a dent in Pesky's Pole. Then he hit another home run in the game, a 13-2 Red Sox win.

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Ortiz is a superstar, but he's not invincible. When he came up with the bases loaded, no outs, his team down by a run in the bottom of the ninth the next night, he grounded into a double play and the Sox lost.

Ortiz is ultimately beholden to the rule of "win some, lose some," just like any Boston sports great. Except some of the ones he's won have reversed curses and uplifted an entire city. Which, as much as anything he does with his charity and his dazzling smile after he retires, is why we'll remember him long after the games are over.


Peter Abraham of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. David Filipov can be reached at David.Filipov@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidfilipov.