Former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz shot in back and hospitalized

The Game Room
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Story here

David Ortiz, known as “Big Papi,” was a first baseman and designated hitter who made his Major League Baseball debut in 1997 and played 20 seasons before retiring in 2016. While Ortiz’s Major League career began with the Minnesota Twins, he was best known for his 14 seasons in Boston with the Red Sox.

He is in stable condition, after having surgery.

What a day for Boston sports fans.

Good luck to Ortiz.

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There is surveillance video of the shooting. Scary stuff, man. Multiple people have been detained. Sounds like Papi is out of danger, so that’s a relief.

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Ya think? :dubious:

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There are unsubstantiated stories that the hit was ordered by a Dominican drug boss in retaliation for Papi’s messing with one of his women, and that there are armed guards in his Boston hospital room. Just sayin’.

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“Unsubstantiated.”

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Apparently the Red Sox hired an air ambulance and set it down to DR to fly Papi back to Boston for medical care at Mass General.

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Good for the Red Sox for stepping up and taking care of their own. I wish Papi a speedy recovery.

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We’re all pulling for you Big Papi.

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Gee, I wonder if Big Papi will make some sort of appearance at Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Wednesday - via video, maybe?

That should light the place right up.

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Saw a report somewhere today, can’t remember where, the gunman says he got the wrong guy. Whoever put him up to it only described what the target was wearing. Makes sense, I really find it hard to belive there was a hit put out on Papi. Maybe it was the Steinbrenners, serving up a cold dish of revenge.

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Perhaps he never paid his dealer.

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Update: Big Papi was not the intended target.

Apparently, Ortiz’s friend, Sixto David Fernandez, who was sitting at the same table was supposed to be taken out. Total fuck-up.

If this was drug-related, that shooter better hope he goes to prison. If he gets on the street, he’ll be a dead man.

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"…Ortiz and Fernandez were dressed similarly on the night of the incident, leading to a case of mistaken identity.”

Yeah, I don’t think I’m buying this. There are a lot of rumors out there about why Ortiz was targeted, not saying I believe any of those, either. But mistaken identity? David Ortiz? In the Dominican Republic? It stinks.

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From the back, though …

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This case may be expanding. The following two things happened in the past hour:

  1. Octavio Dotel and Luis Castillo just got arrested for connections to a narcotrafficker:

(In Spanish, but this is the original report)

English story here: https://www.12up.com/posts/breaking-ex-mlb-players-octavio-dotel-and-luis-castillo-arrested-on-drug-trafficking-charges-in-dr-01djqwy291mw

  1. The SI reporter who is working this story just tweeted:

“BIG NEWS out of Dominican Republic. Cesar El Abusador, who I wrote about (and DM’d) as rumored to be behind the Ortiz shooting, is being sought by prosecutors, DEA & FBI, as the top narco in the country. Also says he used MLB players to launder money”

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THIS LUIS CASTILLO, not the current Cincinnati Red:

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I never got around to asking this before. I remember hearing that Ortiz was back in the U.S. very shortly after the shooting, but I never heard how he got here. I would think it would be difficult to transport someone who was so gravely injured. Is that sort of transport done routinely, and are there planes specially equipped for it? And is medical care so much better in the U.S. that it’s worth taking the risk of moving someone here very soon after being shot?

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The Red Sox organization ferried him back by ‘air ambulance’ to the Massachusetts General Hospital (pretty much the best hospital in the US).

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Answered in Post #6 in this thread:

So:

  1. He got to the US by air ambulance hired by the Red Sox.
  2. As the name “air ambulance” implies, yes, there are special planes equipped for transporting ill/injured passengers. They are generally staffed by trained medical personnel and equipped with specialized equipment like an ambulance, but are usually bigger so they have more room for ‘stuff’.
  3. I would say that the Red Sox certainly thought so and apparently, Ortiz’s family agreed with them. While we can’t argue the negative (what would have happened if he had stayed), his survival suggests that, at a minimum, they weren’t wrong to take the risk.
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Thanks, both.

I wonder how many planes like that there are in the world. It doesn’t seem like there’d be much demand for them at the prices they must charge. I wonder if it’s convertible to cargo, or some other use, when it’s not needed as an air ambulance.