Ortiz Being Ortiz

            Today is the day we have all been waiting for. Even though it may be below freezing outside, and you may find this slightly hard to believe, the 2015 Red Sox season gets underway today. The Sox will take on the Boston College Eagles and the Northeastern Huskies college baseball teams today in the annual slugfest in which the Sox get to show off some of their best new talent.

            Last year the Red Sox beat Boston College 11-1 and they modestly topped Northeastern 5-2. I’ve never had a chance to take in one of these games, but I did talk to former Vermont Mountaineers outfielder Aaron Barbosa, who played for Northeastern, about playing in the game. Barbosa said that it was a very exciting experience to play against the Red Sox, and one that he’ll never forget.

            Today the Sox are expected to send Clay Buchholz out for the first game against the Huskies and then Wade Miley to start the second game against BC.

            There hasn’t been a whole lot of action on the field so far at camp, but before the team starts playing games is when the players sit down with all the different members of the media, and last week David Ortiz made some harsh comments about the new rules that the MLB has put into place to speed up the game.

            It wasn’t surprising to me to hear that David Ortiz hated the new pace of play rules, but what did catch me by surprise was how aggressive he was in lashing out at the MLB for implementing them. When Big Papi rolled into camp, he was in a great mood. He was back in the Florida sunshine, his good friends, and now teammates Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez was there with him, and he doesn’t have to worry about his contract again until next year. However, when Boston Globe Red Sox beat writer Peter Abraham told Ortiz about the new place of play rules (which require batters to keep at least one foot throughout an at-bat), in a press conference last week, things went south for the Red Sox DH.

            “Is that new this year?” Ortiz asked Abraham after the reporter brought the new rules up in his question. “Yeah,” Abraham responded. “I call that bull (explicit),” Ortiz said back. “They don’t understand that when you come out of the box, you’re thinking about what the (pitcher is) trying to do…I’m not walking around just because there are cameras all over the place, and I want my buddies back home to see me.”

            When asked if he understood the concept of speeding the game up, Ortiz responded by saying that “It doesn’t matter what they do, the game’s not going to speed up. That’s the bottom line.”

            After that, another reporter explained to Papi that the MLB would fine him if he didn’t obey by the new rule. “I might run out of money,” Ortiz said in response. “I’m not going to change my game. I don’t care what they say.”

            So clearly Ortiz isn’t on board with speeding up the game. However, in a one-on-one interview with Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal this week, Ortiz backed off a bit. “I totally understand,” Ortiz said when Rosenthal asked him if he understood where the MLB was coming from with the new rules. “What I don’t understand is that it’s always related to batters, and the other day what got me angry was that,” Ortiz continued. “When you look around the game, the batter’s not the only one that wastes time.”

            Papi also said later in that same interview that he is “one of the faster (players) at getting in and out of the box,” which is almost laughable, considering he steps out and spits on his batting gloves after almost every pitch.

            While I agree with Ortiz that the batters aren’t the only ones in the game who waste time, I don’t think that the rules that the league is implementing are bad ones. I also hate the attitude that because David Ortiz is David Ortiz, he doesn’t have to abide by the rules. Papi may be a veteran and a very loveable guy, but he is also a player in the MLB, which means that he needs to follow the rules that are put in place by the league, no matter how long he’s been in the game.

            With that said, Red Sox Nation loves Papi because he’s Papi, and I don’t expect his personality to change any time soon. It’s hard to believe, but there’s only 33 days until MLB opening day, and like the rest of the baseball world, I can’t wait.