David Ortiz’s three-run, eighth-inning homer Wednesday night powered the Boston Red Sox to a 4-2 win over the Texas Rangers. It also, according to the folks at Tater Trot Tracker, gave Ortiz a spot in the record books.
Ortiz took 32.91 seconds to round the bases after his blast off Rangers reliever Neal Cotts — the slowest home run trot recorded since the Tracker’s inception in 2008. Ortiz’s stroll around the basepaths broke the previous mark of 31.56 seconds, set by Bobby Abreu after his final career home run, by nearly 1 1/2 seconds.
Big Papi apparently is somewhat of a legend among those who take the time to clock these sorts of things. Ortiz had seven of the 10 slowest trots last season, and he held the title belt in 2010 as the first slugger with a trot that surpassed 30 seconds.
His latest comes with an asterisk, though, as Ortiz initially didn’t know whether the hit would fall in fair or foul territory. The umpires weren’t too sure either, requiring a video review before the home run finally was confirmed.
Check it out in the video below.
[mlbvideo id=”31954343″ width=”640″ height=”358″ /]
Hat tip to WEEI.com for the find.
