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‘He’s a good guy.’ David Ortiz really does like Alex Rodriguez, and other highlights from The Tradition

David Ortiz was the star attraction at The Tradition at TD Garden on Wednesday.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

In 2004, shortly before the Red Sox began their comeback that culminated in their first World Series in 86 years, David Ortiz was planning his vacation.

Ortiz, speaking Wednesday at The Sports Museum’s annual awards program “The Tradition,” told moderators Tom Caron and Jackie MacMullan he thought the season was over going into Game 4.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, they had Kevin Millar.

“He was screaming all the way across the field down from first base, ‘This [expletive] is going down tonight,’ ” Ortiz said, to laughter from the crowd.

Ortiz said Millar started screaming and talking trash, yelling at his teammates and even the Yankees: “Don’t let us win one.”

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“I was like, ‘What is wrong with him?’” Ortiz said. “He was the real motivation.”

Ortiz’s appearance was a highlight of The Tradition, a star-studded event at which Kevin McHale, Mike Milbury, Ben Coates, Taylor Twellman, and Angela Ruggiero also were honored.

“Boston is everything to me, man,” Ortiz said. “Boston built me. Boston is the place I always love to come. People every time treat me with a smile. It never gets old.”

As Ortiz’s time on stage wrapped up, Caron had a final question.

“Do you really like A-Rod?” Caron asked, a reference to Alex Rodriguez, Ortiz’s colleague on the Fox broadcast team for MLB telecasts.

Ortiz and the crowd roared with laughter.

“Look, he’s a good guy, man,” Ortiz said, and the crowd groaned, with some scattered boos. “The thing is, he’s got his own personality. In my case, I love you the way you are. I don’t want you to be the way I want you to be ... I am the way I am, you are the way you are, I’m going to love you the way you are, you’ve got to love me the way I am.”

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Other highlights from the event.

• After years of playing basketball with Danny Ainge, followed by years of running in the same circles as NBA executives, former Celtics big man Kevin McHale offered his assessment of his longtime friend.

“He’s still an ass,” McHale told reporters.

Nonetheless, McHale chose Ainge to be his presenter, and the two discussed the 1986 Celtics and whether the ‘85 or ‘87 teams were better. Ainge also talked about imploring McHale to hit somebody hard one time right before McHale’s famous takedown of the Lakers’ Kurt Rambis in 1984.

“The only regret I had, it wasn’t a better player,” McHale said. “I mean, Rambis? [James] Worthy, or Magic [Johnson], Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] or somebody. It just happened to be Rambis.”

• McHale said he visited tiny Hellenic College in Brookline, where the Celtics used to practice — a far cry from the gleaming Auerbach Center that now towers over the Pike.

“I never went to a game playing against the Sixers and go, ‘We’d be a lot better if our practice facility was better,’ ” McHale said. “I was trying to kick their ass. I didn’t care where we practiced.”

Kevin McHale played for the Celtics from 1980-93.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

• Ainge doesn’t miss being Celtics president of basketball operations.

“It was a grind for 18 years,” he said. “But I do love the game still. I watch the game a lot.”

Ainge said he spoke to new Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens often during the summer. The two speak less frequently now, but Ainge remains connected to his son, Celtics director of player personnel Austin Ainge, as well as assistant GM Mike Zarren. He has watched every Celtics game this season, and he enjoys watching “most nights.”

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“I think I said this a handful of times last year: It’s just about putting 48 minutes together,” Ainge said. “They just have these great quarters, great halves, and haven’t been able to put as many great 48-minute games together and string them together yet. But I do see a lot of potential with the team.”

• Angela Ruggiero, an Olympic gold medalist and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, said she first picked up hockey at age 7 because nobody else wanted to play in California in the ‘80s.

Ruggiero’s father, a native of New Haven, wanted her younger brother to play, and the team was desperate for players. The coach offered her father a family discount if he brought his two daughters to join the team.

Ruggiero described the harrowing process of letting go of the boards her first time on the ice. When she finally did and started gliding, an Olympic hockey career was born.

“I fell into it,” Ruggiero said. “It was crazy, it found me.”

Ruggiero quickly became one of the best players in the country; she played for the national team at age 15 (and brought hockey cards for all her teammates to sign) and won an NCAA championship at Harvard in 1999. A year earlier, she and Team USA claimed gold at the 1998 Olympics — a monumental moment for the sport.

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“I’m a huge advocate for women,” Ruggiero said. “We need more women to be visible, we need to invest in women’s sports, we need to do more to support not just on the field but off the field, because sports is a platform for change.”

Angela Ruggiero (left) received her trophy from Harvard women's hockey coach Katey Stone.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

• Twellman said he’s excited to see soccer’s growth in the region.

“It always has been kind of in the heartbeat of the city, but now it’s really part of it,” he said. “I think that culminates with me being inducted.”

Twellman said he attended The Tradition many times and always had a chip on his shoulder at the lack of soccer representation, “not for me but for the Revolution and the sport and the Kraft family to be recognized in this market.”

Twellman praised this year’s Revolution team, which was the best in MLS before a loss in the playoffs. He can relate: Twellman believes his Revolution teams should have won at least two titles from 2005-07.

“Those teams will never be remembered for the way they should be, but they should be remembered,” he said. “There was a real opportunity there to grasp that. It’s easily the one regret I have, not delivering that to this city.”

From left: Tradition host Tom Caron, honoree Taylor Twellman and his presenter Steve Ralston, and host Jackie MacMullan.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

• Twellman is confident the Kraft family will deliver something soccer-related to the city, however: World Cup games in 2026 at Gillette Stadium.

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“Honestly, I’d be shocked if they don’t get a game,” Twellman said.

A FIFA delegation recently visited Gillette Stadium as part of its selection process.

“There’s a real strong shot,” Twellman said. “They have to do some things to Gillette Stadium and whatnot, but there’s a real strong chance World Cup will be here.”

• Coates’s time as a Patriots tight end predated the Tom Brady dynasty, but he was a star in his own right: a five-time Pro Bowler who amassed 5,555 yards and 50 touchdowns for his career.

Coates was so reliable, he and Drew Bledsoe coined a creative nickname.

“If you look at it game to game, I probably wasn’t open, but I was open,” Coates said. “We had this thing where we’d go back and forth. I’d say ‘Drew.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah?’ ‘Is 7/11 still open?’ He’d say, ‘Yeah. 7/11 is always going to be open. It’s 7/11.’ ”

Coates said he is enjoying this year’s gritty Patriots team.

“Last year they were down, but this year, they are back at the top,” he said. “The Patriots are a team that nobody wants to be at the top anymore, but guess what: We’re back again, so you have to stop them.”

Ben Coates was presented with his award at The Tradition by former teammate Paul Francisco.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

• Former Bruins coach and player Mike Milbury said he was walking around Faneuil Hall recently when a police officer recognized and congratulated him.

Milbury assumed the congratulations were for being honored at The Tradition. He was wrong.

“Your anniversary is coming up,” the officer said. “The shoe incident on the 23rd.”

The shoe incident, of course, references a famous brawl in 1979, when the Bruins entered the stands and fought fans in New York. Milbury could be seen pulling off a man’s shoe and smacking him with it.

“I get such a bad rap for this,” Milbury said.

According to Milbury, New York fans would throw bottles of vodka and batteries at players. After the game in ‘79, Milbury went straight to the locker room, but his teammates didn’t follow. Millbury hurried back out and saw the mayhem. He ran up the stairs and found teammate Peter McNab with a fan in “a very compromising position, feet up in the air.”

“So I grabbed at his leg, and then I took his cheap little penny loafer off and hit him on the thigh,” Milbury said, as the crowd laughed. “And for that, I got six games and a lifetime of suffering.”

Tom Caron (left) and Mike Milbury at The Tradition.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff