A Dream Turns Real
Atop Fenway Park
By M. D. Drysdale

Genial Boston Red Sox super-slugger David "Big Papi" Ortiz is all smiles as he takes a question from broadcaster Hazel Mae during a Fenway Park event promoting the players' charities. (Herald photos / M. D. Drysdale)

This email had to be fake, something that had tiptoed past the spam filter on my iMac.

It was an invitation to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, and not just to Fenway but to the swank EMC Club atop the right field luxury seats. Not very likely they’d want a small-town editor from Vermont up in that clubhouse, I thought.

And the more I read, the more unlikely it got. The nvitation was to a wine-tasting, of all things. But get this: It would be a wine-tasting in the company of KEVIN YOUKILIS, JASON VARITEK, AND DAVID ORTIZ, living legends from the heart of the World Champion Red Sox roster.

It had to be a dream, so I slept on it on it.

It wasn’t though. On Thursday, May 15, there I was in the EMC Club, Fenway green extending for acres outside the huge windows, a wine glass in my hand—and the genial round face of "Big Papi" Ortiz breaking into a big grin just 15 feet away.

Ortiz was talking about Manny Ramirez. A couple of days previously the super-slugger and free spirit, chasing a fly ball, had virtually walked/jumped up an outfield fence, where he "high-fived" the amazed fans in the first row as he caught the ball.

"I couldn’t believe it," beamed Ortiz, with affection and admiration. "He had to show me the TV replay."

Interviewing Ortiz was Hazel Mae, the vivacious, hard-working public face of the New England Sports Network (NESN). Next to the bulk of Ortiz, she looked like a toy, even in two-inch heels.

The event, as it turned out, was a celebration of the release of three new wines named after the players. The California wines are bottled by Longball Cellars a product of Charity Wines, which works with players to benefit their charities. A dollar and a quarter of each $14 bottle goes directly to the individual player’s charity. The company says it raised $300,000 for the charities last year and hopes to reach $2 million in 2008.

The Fenway event was organized by yet another organization, CharityHop, which promotes Longball Cellars and multiple other sports charity efforts.

CharityHop had put Hazel Mae in control of the proceedings. After Ortiz, she interviewed Red Sox Captain Jason Varitek, and first/third baseman Youkilis, who just the day before had played a game in right field for the first time in his Major League career.

Varitek, plenty big and incredibly clean cut in an open shirt, asked Hazel May why she didn’t talk to him more often. Fans should know that he really does have those soft alert eyes that you see on TV.

Youkilis admitted that he sometimes does get tired of people calling out "Yooouuk" wherever he goes. He also disclosed that his Golden Glove slips up on his wrist a little.

A questioner from Portland tried to get Youck to say something nice about his minor league days playing in Portland. Youck offered a pleasantry but added, "Really, though, I was just excited to get OUT of there."

The man wanted to play in the big leagues, not Portland.

Hazel May moved to questions about the topic that had brought the stars to Fenway—their personal charities.

Ortiz has charities both here and in his native Dominican Republic. He remembers a Dominican friend presenting him with a scene of desperate need, explaining simply, "They just need help—from somebody."

Ortiz decided he would be somebody.

Varitek remembered meeting a girl in a full body cast in the Children’s Hospital of Boston. She didn’t survive, but "When she died, it made my affiliation that much stronger," he said.

Youkilis, a relative newcomer to the Sox, had just started his personal charity, "Youck’s Hits for Kids," the year before. An enthusiastic bevy of volunteers were there to tell how it worked.

So the email inviation turned out to be genuine. So did the party. And the party. And so did the Red Sox stars themselves who had, after all, donated part of a rare off-day to chat with strangers in order to promote their charities. These guys, we all decided, were the real deal.

They sure proved that on the field. In the next couple of days Youck and Ortiz both homered—Ortiz three times in two games. And just five days later, flashing signs from behind the plate as young John Lester pitched the game of his life, Jason Varitek became the first catcher in the history of Major League Baseball ever to catch four no-hit, no-run ballgames.

I still get chills when I think about it.