Sports
D’Angelo Ortiz, son of Big Papi, returns to Red Sox spring training to forge his own path
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Even by the anonymous standards of minor league baseball, No. 44 in Boston Red Sox camp is not a star. He was a late-round draft pick, didn’t get a big signing bonus and remains unranked — even among Red Sox players — by the usual prospect evaluation outlets. He was not invited to Major League spring training, and there’s no guarantee he’ll ever play in the majors.
But when former Red Sox reliever Koji Uehara arrived in Red Sox camp, he posed for pictures with the young man. Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez hugged him. The kid is one of countless 20-year-olds trying to make it in professional baseball, anonymous except for the name on the back of his jersey: Ortiz. As in, D’Angelo Ortiz. Son of Red Sox legend David Ortiz.
When D’Angelo steps out of the minor league clubhouse at the Red Sox spring training facility and turns right, he jogs past a giant picture of his dad. He stops occasionally to talk to Red Sox executives and former players he’s known since he was a kid, but the conversations are brief. D’Angelo has work to do. More groundballs. More batting practice. Zero requests for special treatment.
“The least that I could do is show how serious I take this,” D’Angelo said. “I just want to show that taking a chance on me is not a thing that is because of the name or anything like that.”
His name helped introduce the sport that he loves. It granted him remarkable access to the game at its highest level. But to expect it to do any more than that?
“He knows,” David Ortiz said, “that’s not going to take him anywhere.”
The Red Sox drafted D’Angelo last summer, taking him in the 19th round out of Miami Dade Community College, a baseball powerhouse. D’Angelo was selected 567th overall and signed for a slot allotment of $150,000, roughly three percent of what the Red Sox gave their first-round selection. Ortiz never got into an official game last season, but when the Red Sox opened their complex for optional workouts in the fall, D’Angelo was there. When they opened again in the weeks ahead of spring training, D’Angelo was back.
His reputation among coaches and executives is not of baseball royalty but of a baseball rat. D’Angelo has been ready to work and eager to learn. He’s open to new techniques and happy to try the latest technology. He shies away from little and dismisses even less.
“Someone who’s really trying to tap into his ability to maximize his talent,” farm director Brian Abraham said about D’Angelo. “He understands that there’s a long way to go to become a successful big leaguer. There’s a long way to go to get to the upper levels. But I don’t think he’s not going to get there due to lack of work or lack of wanting to get there.”
The Red Sox say these things on and off the record. There are no snide remarks on the side while publicly singing his praises. The younger Ortiz has been a constant presence, not for photo ops with Hall of Famers, but for ground balls on the back fields and extra swings in the cage. He’s confident, but also well aware that he’s nowhere close to the big leagues. He knows what the big leagues look like, and this isn’t it, but he’s hellbent on getting there.
D’Angelo said he still remembers riding to Fenway Park with his dad, who at that point had won multiple Silver Sluggers, played in multiple All-Star Games, and owned three World Series rings. Cooperstown was a formality. Still, David would drive the streets of Boston, telling his son that each day was another in which even Big Papi would have to prove himself all over again.
In the Red Sox clubhouse, young D’Angelo certainly admired the superstars, but he also took note of the talented players who came and went, unable to stick in the big leagues, and some of his favorite players were utility infielders — Brock Holt and Deven Marrero among them — who couldn’t take anything for granted, put in work every day and still made time for the 10-year-old kid bouncing around the clubhouse. D’Angelo came to appreciate work ethic and to value teamwork and kindness.
“My passion so happens to be baseball,” D’Angelo said. “But if I grew up wanting to be a doctor, I’m sure I would try everything in my power to be the best doctor I could be.”
There is a burden that comes with this particular last name in this particular organization. For D’Angelo, it is a challenge of familiarity. He now answers to a farm director, Abraham, who was once a Red Sox bullpen catcher protecting young D’Angelo from batting practice line drives. D’Angelo agreed to an interview for this story after being asked by a director of media relations, Abby Murphy, who used to babysit for him. Red Sox manager Alex Cora, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and coaching staff staple Jason Varitek all played with D’Angelo’s father.
This organization has known D’Angelo as a little boy. Now, he’s reintroducing himself as a baseball player.
“Part of that,” D’Angelo said, “is showing I’m not just a kid anymore who wants to run around and kind of be in the shadow.”
D’Angelo was a regular presence around the Red Sox growing up. (AP Photo / Elise Amendola)
His fellow players notice. D’Angelo’s personality is less bombastic than his father’s, but it’s no less engaging. He talks about a desire to “dominate the training environment,” and people in the organization say he’s already emerged as a leader. His fluency in both Spanish and English makes him a unifier to whom other players gravitate.
One of the Red Sox’s big three prospects, Marcelo Mayer, was in Fort Myers this offseason and met D’Angelo in the lunchroom. The two sat together to eat, and D’Angelo remembers the conversation lasting a half hour. Mayer thinks it might have been three times as long. They talked swings and approach. Mayer, D’Angelo said, offered the kind of insight typical of a 10-year major league veteran. D’Angelo, Mayer said, exuded the passion not of a player who’d seen it all but of one who was eager to learn more.
“He’s one of the most humble, hard-working kids that I’ve been around,” Mayer said. “You would have no clue that his dad is David Ortiz.”
That’s kind of the point, and kind of not. D’Angelo is proud of his dad. He does not shy away from that legacy. Being back at JetBlue Park, he said, is “nostalgic.” He doesn’t wear his father’s No. 34 and wouldn’t have wanted it, but he also wouldn’t have cared if he’d been assigned it. It’s a part of a wonderful history, and D’Angelo appreciates that, but his focus is on the future.
“I did my thing. He’s got to do his,” David said. “He knows the hardest working guy in the room is the one that gets closer and closer and closer to the promised land. There is no shortcut.”
Asked about his father’s own rise from obscurity — David was famously traded and then released before becoming one of the great hitters of his generation — D’Angelo dismissed the comparison, just as he politely dismissed a question about having to exceed expectations as such a late-round pick. None of it is going to matter, he said, if — and when — he performs on the field.
And besides, the way D’Angelo sees it, he can already do things his father could never do. D’Angelo bats and throws right-handed. His primary position is third base. David was a lefty who played exclusively at DH and first base. David couldn’t play the hot corner, even in the low minors. His son is doing that every day. He’s got some speed, range and athleticism.
Point is, the father found one path to the big leagues. The son is forging another. That’s the way it has to be.
“What I will always idolize from him is that in his specific craft, which was hitting, he was able to get the most out of it and become the best player he was able to become,” D’Angelo said. “And whether I’m playing infield or outfield or DH, I want to be able to make the most out of whatever I am.”
There is some ambiguity there — “Whatever I am” — and D’Angelo and the Red Sox are in the process of figuring that out. After all the car rides to the ballpark, all the afternoons in the clubhouse, and all the conversations at home, a passion has been lit and the life lessons have been learned. It’s time for D’Angelo Ortiz to find out what kind of ballplayer he can be.
“I don’t have to stay much to him now,” David said. “Everything he’s doing, he’s doing on his own. I just watch.”
(Top photo: John Shishmanian / USA Today via Imagn Images)
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Former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart backtracked on his criticism of President Donald Trump and his plan to intervene in Iran and strike the country’s nuclear facilities.
Cozart, a one-time All-Star, wrote on social media last week that he would “no longer support” the president if the U.S. was dragged into a war with Iran and Israel. However, after the president announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached, Cozart fired off a new reaction.
Zack Cozart, #2 of the Cincinnati Reds, is congratulated by his teammates after hitting a home run during the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Great American Ball Park on Sept. 15, 2017 in Cincinnati. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)
“I’ll gladly eat my words for what has transpired today… lesson learned to trust the man,” he wrote on X.
Cozart was far from the only person in the sports world to heap praise on Trump after Iran’s retaliatory attack on a U.S. base in Qatar failed to do much of anything.
Auburn Tigers men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl wrote on social media that Trump should earn the Nobel Peace Prize.
AUBURN’S BRUCE PEARL CALLS FOR TRUMP TO GET NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AFTER ANNOUNCING ISRAEL-IRAN CEASEFIRE
Zack Cozart, #2 of the Cincinnati Reds, in action against the New York Mets at Citi Field on Sept. 10, 2017 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
“This is what a peace maker and the leader of the free world does, he steps in when both sides can’t agree and he gives them an offer they can’t refuse,” the college basketball coach wrote on X. “He should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I pray that all sides can offer some grace and keep the peace.”
Trump on Tuesday made his way to a NATO summit while the ceasefire between Iran and Israel hung in the balance. He told the two countries to quit firing missiles at each other after the deal was brokered.
“I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,” Trump told reporters before he left.
President Donald Trump lashes out at Israel and Iran with profanity for breaking the ceasefire. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing.”
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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Sports
Commentary: Walker Buehler struggling to rediscover his Dodgers World Series magic with Red Sox
Walker Buehler owned our city. When the Dodgers ran out of arms last fall, he instantly reimagined himself as a closer and slayed the mighty New York Yankees in the final inning of the World Series. In the championship parade, he donned the jersey of fellow Fall Classic hero Orel Hershiser. He and catcher Will Smith auctioned the ball used for the final out and donated the $414,000 in proceeds toward wildfire relief.
From the day he arrived at Dodger Stadium as a rookie in 2017, Buehler exuded confidence. Tommy Lasorda had to goad Hershiser into becoming a bulldog. Buehler always had been one.
That made it shocking, frankly, to hear Buehler talk after the Angels dazed him in a five-run first inning Monday at Angel Stadium. They beat him, he beat himself, whatever.
But among the words uttered by the one-time Dodgers ace with the supreme confidence were these: “I think I can still pitch in the major leagues.”
Buehler’s earned-run average is 6.29, the highest of any American League pitcher with at least 60 innings.
That leaves the Red Sox with this unsettling dilemma: They are a game and a half out of an American League wild card — and only a game ahead of the Angels — so can they afford to keep Buehler in their starting rotation?
“We’ll talk about it,” Boston manager Alex Cora said.
Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Walker Buehler tosses his glove and cap into the dugout as he leaves the field after giving up five runs in the first inning of a 9-5 loss to the Angels at Angel Stadium on Monday.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Associated Press)
Buehler does not shy from accountability, or from the question of whether he worries that the Red Sox might move him to the bullpen, at least for a spell.
“Yeah, I think you have to,” he said. “At some point, there are 26 guys that are going to help this team hopefully make the playoffs.
“If you’re not one of them, I don’t really think it matters what you’ve done in years past.”
In his previous start, Cora noted before the game, Buehler had failed to retire eight batters with two-strike counts.
In this game, after the Red Sox handed him a 3-0 lead, Zach Neto hit Buehler’s first pitch over the center-field fence. The Angels scored the remaining four runs with two outs. In all, the Angels scored five runs on two hits, two hit batters and four walks.
Buehler hit the Angels’ No. 7 batter with two strikes, walked the No. 8 batter with two strikes, and walked the No. 9 batter with two strikes. Then he hit Neto to force home a run.
“It’s embarrassing,” Buehler said. “It’s just not who I want to be as a baseball player. Obviously, I’d rather get whacked around than do that.
“Somehow, this year, I’ve managed to do all the negative things you can. I’ll keep working. It’s just tough to let down our team, especially with the first inning that we had.”
The Dodgers signed Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki to replace Buehler and Jack Flaherty in their rotation. Snell and Sasaki are on the injured list. Flaherty has a 4.83 ERA and an AL-high eight losses for the team with the best record in the majors, the Detroit Tigers.
Buehler has started 13 games, more than anyone on the Red Sox except Garrett Crochet and more than anyone on the Dodgers except Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dustin May. Buehler’s ERA in seven games since returning from an injured list stint for what the Red Sox called shoulder bursitis: 8.59.
Cora insists that Buehler’s stuff and velocity are fine, and that mechanics and execution are the issues. Buehler walked a career-high seven in his four innings on Monday, more than he walked in 15 innings in the 2024 postseason. Opposing batters have an OPS over 1.000 against his four-seam fastball.
“Honestly, his stuff is good. It’s really good,” Cora said before the game. “The one thing we always talk about is the misses. If you look at his four-seamer, when he goes up, it’s actually a non-competitive pitch.
“If we can tighten that up — and that’s with more repetitions, of course — he’s going to be OK. Hopefully, it starts soon.”
After the game, Cora said he is “100%” sure Buehler is not pitching hurt. Buehler, asked if he is pitching through anything, said: “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Buehler is in his first full season after his second Tommy John surgery. The track record for pitchers returning to their previous performance level after a second such surgery is not encouraging. Shohei Ohtani is trying the same thing this season.
For the Dodgers last October, after returning for an abbreviated season, Buehler threw 10 shutout innings in the league championship series and the World Series. I asked him whether the comeback might be harder over the course of a full season. That was the context for volunteering his remark about his ability to pitch in the majors.
“I think, in all honesty, it’s a lot easier to stay good than to get good,” he said. “The guys on the other side of the field from me drive nice cars, get paid a lot of money to be really good at what they do. Outside of a couple swings, I think largely I beat myself, which is just not something that you can do here.
“I think it’s in there. I think my arm still moves good. I think I can still make the ball move. I think I can still pitch in the major leagues.
“At some point, the belief, it gets hard to keep tricking yourself. At some point, I have got to put some results up there, for myself, but also for this organization.”
Walker Buehler sits in the dugout after being pulled in the fourth inning against the Seattle Mariners on June 17.
(John Froschauer / Associated Press)
That is the reality, and the reason for the talk about whether the Red Sox might remove him from their rotation.
“I’m a guy open to doing whatever needs to be done,” he said.
“I’m a starting pitcher. I’ve been a starting pitcher my whole life. I don’t necessarily think that changing that is going to somehow magically fix everything.”
Something’s gotta give. Could be his results, could be his role. Whatever the case, he’ll always have last October.
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Irish golfer Leona Maguire battled for the lead at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship over the weekend even as she expressed her discomfort with tick bites.
Maguire said she suffered the bites at Erin Hills Golf Couse in Wisconsin during the U.S. Women’s Open and was treating the issue with doxycycline. However, Maguire showed reporters during the Women’s PGA Championship that her hand was swollen.
Leona Maguire plays her shot from the third tee during the first round of the CPKC Women’s Open golf tournament on July 25, 2024 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports)
She described the blister as a “pepperoni,” according to Golf Week.
“It’s made my skin like tissue paper,” she told the outlet.
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Leona Maguire hits from the fairway on the second hole during the first round of the Women’s PGA Championship golf tournament Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Frisco, Texas. (LM Otero/AP Photo)
The Texas heat didn’t help Maguire much during the tournament. She finished the first round of the Women’s PGA Championship four strokes behind leader Jeeno Thitikul but fell off the pace.
She shot a 76 in the final round and finished tied for 19th with Nelly Korda, Miranda Wang and Youmin Hwang. Minjee Lee won the tournament.
“Huge thanks to @KPMG and @kpmgsports for their continued commitment to elevating women’s golf and for the excellent hospitality this week,” Maguire wrote in post on her Instagram account. “@kpmgwomenspga PGA Frisco was a tough test — the wind didn’t let up, but neither did we! Nice to be back in the business end of things on a Sunday afternoon.”
Maguire has been on the LPGA Tour since 2020. This season, she’s made 14 tournament appearances and made the cut 10 times.
Leona Maguire (IRL) walks the tenth fairway during the second round of the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament on May 31, 2024 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (John Jones/USA TODAY Sports)
She’s earned about $315,000 so far this season.
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