Heavy Hitters

Big Papi and his do-gooder rum; plus, Anjali Enjeti's latest book Ballot, living like Thoreau, and an ode to a runner-up.

Hello readers,

How are things in your world?

As a features writer, I have an ever-changing list of people, places and things that I'd like to write about, so I'm pretty tickled when an editor assigns me a piece and I get to cross off another item on my dream story inventory. Some of the names I've crossed off include the late fashion designer Valentino Garavani, style maven Iris Apfel, funk icon George Clinton, the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and former Atlanta United striker Josef Martinez.

This month, I can cross off another name: Former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who was the subject of a feature I wrote for this month's issue of Aventura Magazine. As a Baltimore Orioles fan, my memories of Ortiz are pretty painful and involve towering home runs that either put his team ahead, or sealed a Boston victory. One time, he was so mad about a called strike three that he smashed a bullpen phone in the visitor's dugout at Camden Yard. It was a sight to behold, but he told me he doesn't remember it. After all, he played an awful lot of baseball before his retirement in 2016.

Since hanging up his cleats, the man they call Big Papi has been keeping busy. His latest endeavor, Ozama Rum, aims to clean up a beloved river in his native Dominican Republic. For more on post-Red Sox Papi, Ozama, and this truly delicious rum, see the feature, which starts below, and continues at the link.

He's a heavy hitter, to be sure. So too, is award-winning author Anjali Enjeti, whose latest book, Ballot, came out yesterday. More on that in Endnotes, but be sure to grab a copy ASAP. Needless to say, it's a timely one.

Keep on keeping on,

Paige

The Slugger with a Grand Slam Spirit

When David “Big Papi” Ortiz puts his whole body and soul into something, it’s usually a big hit. The retired Boston Red Sox slugger made a name for himself by crushing more than 500 game-changing homeruns that powered his team to three World Series championships and earned him a spot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, he’s taking a swing at a passion project – Ozama Rum – that he hopes will help revitalize a beloved river in his native Dominican Republic.

“All I want to do is make an impact and call attention to the fact that the Ozama River needs to be cleaned up and brought back to life,” says Ortiz, 50, a part-time Miami resident. “It’s going to be good for the new generation of people coming up, the kids having fun just like I once did.”

Long before he was playing in big stadiums with bright lights, Ortiz was a little boy who walked long distances with his friends to catch fish and crabs in the 92-mile-long Ozama after school. Lush with sycamores, water hyacinths, and other flora like the Bayahibe rose, the river’s ecosystem was home to countless migratory birds, frogs, and other wildlife, making it an idyllic place to while away an afternoon. While some of his buddies swam, Ortiz preferred to sit back and watch his little brother splash around with water wings created from gallon jugs full of water.

“I was like, ‘I ain’t doing that’,” Ortiz recalls. “The river has some really deep water and that’s why I was always concerned about swimming in it. I was young, but I wasn’t stupid. But it was a beautiful memory. We’d spend all afternoon down there fishing and bringing it home and cooking it for everybody.”

In 1996, Ortiz left the Dominican Republic for the United States to pursue his big-league dreams – and succeeded mightily. After retiring from baseball as a ten-time All-Star in 2016, Ortiz decided to give his sons, David Jr. and D'Angelo, the opportunity to play baseball too. Ortiz says it became clear to him that both boys would follow in his footsteps someday. He believed they would benefit from living somewhere where they could play in beautiful weather year-round and relocated to Miami.

“In Boston, they only could have played six months out of the year,” he says. “So, if we hadn’t moved, they would have been like lions in the zoo, not lions in the jungle.”

The move paid off: 18-year-old David Jr. now plays in the Texas Rangers system, while 21-year-old D'Angelo is on the roster for a Boston Red Sox affiliate. Ortiz's 23-year-old daughter Alexandra is a singer-songwriter who sang "The National Anthem" at Fenway Park to kick off her father’s final year of play. In 2024, Ortiz and his fiancée Maria Yeribel welcomed their son Diego to the family. “When I’m at home, I’m at home, because I have a little one who loves having Daddy around,” he says.

As Ortiz built a life in South Florida, the Ozama River had become heavily polluted with trash and factory waste, especially near Santo Domingo. For the nearly 400,000 people living in impoverished communities along the waterway, this, combined with the climate change-induced flooding posed serious threats to their health and quality of life. Ortiz says he saw how desperate things had become along the river as soon as he began going back and forth between Miami and the Dominican Republic to spend time with his ailing father, Americo...

For the rest of the story about Ortiz, and how his Ozama Rum is helping with Ozama River cleanup, please click here. There will be little arrows on the sides of the page to help you click through the rest of the piece, as well as buttons at the bottom of the page to help you zoom in or out.

Writing prompt: Write about your favorite childhood memory.

Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do...but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That makes you a winner right there.

-- Venus Williams

Endnotes

Cast Your Vote for Ballot

If you live in Fulton County, Georgia like I do, and like my neighbor and occasional lunch companion, Anjali Enjeti does, you've been sitting with and/or stewing about the fact that the FBI recently seized our county's 2020 general election ballots and voting records. Our Senator, Jon Ossoff, called this part of a certain sore loser's crusade to prove he won. But beyond that, this seizure is a pretty alarming look at what might be coming in midterm elections this year if things don't go a certain way, if you know what I mean.

Good thing Anjali's new book Ballot came out yesterday. In it, she examines the psychological, cultural, and political significance of voting in an increasingly anti-voting climate. Armed with her experiences as a poll worker, electoral organizer, and activist, she unspools a timely narrative about the precarious state of the ballot during one of the most tumultuous political eras in U.S. history. She also lays out the growing challenges for voters in battleground states, where rightwing legislatures have introduced voter suppression bills and redrawn district lines, all to disenfranchise as many Black and other marginalized voters as possible. Ballot is an important book by a really smart person who knows her stuff. I hope you'll get your copy by clicking here, and see her on her book tour which begins this Saturday night!

Into the Woods

Apparently there are some folks out there building and living in replicas of the cabin Henry David Thoreau lived in for more than two years, an experience that resulted in his 1854 book Walden; Or, Life in the Woods. For more on that, check out this New York Times piece.

Best in Show

Speaking of heavy hitters and stories I'd love to write, this week's Westminster Kennel Club Best in Show winner was a Doberman Pinscher named Penny. The runner-up was a Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Cota, which reminded me of the time when we moved to Baltimore in my youth and my mother romanticized having a Chesapeake Bay Retriever curled up at her feet after a long, hard day at work. Chesapeake Bay Retrievers are beautiful dogs, but we learned the hard way that they are not really meant to be curled up at your feet in a townhome, or owned by families that neither hunted nor owned a farm where wild dogs could roam at will. My mother recalls going to pick up the puppy we'd name Brownie (inventive), and seeing his father leap through the air with a sizable rock (Mom has long claimed it was a boulder, but come on...) in his mouth. This was a harbinger of things to come, needless to say, and we would eventually have to give Brownie to a man who'd correctly rename him Bear. Bear eventually ate that man's kayak, and no, that's not a euphemism for anything. Anyway, good times. Congratulations to Penny, and to runner-up Cota, who is probably gnawing on a tractor as we speak. And? Someone please assign me to write about a show dog preparing for Westminster, and then competing in and perhaps winning it. I would love that. As a matter of fact, it might just be my destiny.

If you have a minute, please consider...

...making a little donation to your local humane society in Cota the Chessie's name. Thank you.