David Ortiz and the F Word: A Comprehensive Look
The Boston Red Sox have been in an intense, high-stress playoff race as their team has crumbled during September, allowing the Tampa Bay Rays to climb back into the Wild Card race. Although this is bad news for Boston, this is good news for everybody else. Not just because of schadenfreude (although largely because of schadenfreude), but also because this means we get to hear David Ortiz say The F Word (i.e., “fuck”), one of my personal favorite pasttimes and something Ortiz is actually quite experienced with. Observe:
August 2009, on not receiving an RBI on what he thought was a base hit: “Fucking scorekeeper keeps fucking shit up.”
April 2010, on what he thought of sportswriters making claims on small sample sizes, including bonus non-fuck swears: “You guys wait ’til shit happens, then you can talk shit. Two fucking games, and already you fuckers are going crazy. What’s up with that, man? Fuck. Fucking 160 games left. That’s a bitch (note: unsure which expletive actually goes here). One of you fuckers got to go ahead and hit for me.”
June 2011, on Joe Girardi’s disdain for bat flips: “Fuck that shit.”
Monday, on losing the first half of a doubleheader to the Baltimore Orioles: “Fuck this shit.”
Tuesday, on Curt Schilling: “Fuck off.”
August 2011, on leaving 16 men on base: “Fuck.”
A diverse usage of one of the English language’s greatest sentence enhancers from Big Papi. One can only hope the Red Sox remain mired in their struggles just to see where he’ll go next.
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When you go to school for sports journalism, there must be a specific class on how to print quotes from athletes. “You guys wait til [stuff] happens, then you can talk [stuff]. Two [stink]ing games.” The bracket is your friend.
I prefer the minimalist approach:
“You guys wait […], then you can talk […] Two […] games.”
or the maximalist:
“You guys wait til [I start hitting again] […], then you can talk [about what a great hitter I am]. Two […] games [is not enough time to form conclusions about an entire season].”