David Ortiz dropped the most beloved public F-bomb of all time, so he is clearly a gifted orator. Still, the king of the postseason walk-off found himself feeling something he wasn’t accustomed to after Fox Sports hired him to sit in the center chair behind its pre- and post-game desk for this year’s baseball playoffs: nerves. Galvanizing his traumatized home town was one thing. “This is our f------ city!” he told Fenway Park on April 20, 2013, five days after the Boston Marathon bombings, drawing praise from even the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Formulating coherent and analytical—and, ideally, non-profane—soundbites in front of 19 million viewers, in his second language, was an entirely new challenge.
The Big Papi Show: Inside David Ortiz's Transition from Red Sox Hero to World Series Analyst
