The Seattle Mariners were just the latest team to honor David Ortiz, who of course is retiring after this season.
Things got a little fishy during the pregame ceremony, though.
See for yourself below.
All in all, not a bad haul for Ortiz, who actually began his career with the Mariners after signing with the club as an international free agent as a teenager.
The Safeco Field speakers concluded the ceremony by playing the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa.” A fitting goodbye for Big Papi.
Let’s take a look at a few other notes from Wednesday’s Red Sox vs. Mariners game.
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–The Andrew Benintendi hype train started as soon as the Red Sox prospect stepped foot into the organization. For one night, at least, he certainly lived up to the hype.
In his first career start, Benintendi was the only member of the team to record multiple hits on a night in which Boston’s bats went silenced.
In the third inning, the 22-year-old sent a ball to the opposite field with a nice swing for his first major league hit. He later cracked a hard liner to right field for a broken-bat single to right field for his hit No. 2 of his big league career.
“It felt good to get it out of the way,” he admitted to reporters in the visitor’s clubhouse after the game, as seen on “NESN Sports Today.” “I don’t really know how to explain it, it’s just one of those things you dream about your entire life. I got to first base and it kind of set in and it was really exciting.”
NESN’s Guerin Austin interview Benintendi’s father during the game, and he said his four brothers and sisters were able to make the trip out along with his wife and two daughters as well as several  friends. The rookie had a huge group standing and cheering for him amidst a sea of Mariners fans after each of his hits, leading to some priceless reactions.
“Yeah it was really good,” Benintendi said after the game of his family and friends being there for his first start. “Some of them flew up this morning and they’re flying out tonight. I’ve had a support system like that my entire life whether it be in high school or in college so I’m really not surprised they made the long trip out here from Cincinnati and I’m happy that they did.”
— Rick Porcello took his first loss since May 17, and snapped a personal six-game winning streak. He gave up just four hits, but three of them left the yard, all solo home runs.
Still, he cruised through seven innings and 103 pitches, and appeared to disagree with manager John Farrell between innings about coming out of the game.
Farrell eventually relented, and Porcello posted a scoreless eighth, giving a struggling bullpen a much-needed night of rest.
— Hanley Ramirez finally spoke with the media about his injured left wrist.
— The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy wrote a great story about how the Seattle Mariners let David Ortiz — then known as David Arias — go.
“He was hitting balls over the baggie in right and we were thinking, ‘Oooh, that’s the kid we gave up for Hollins,'” former Mariners player and current M’s minor league defensive coordinator Dan Wilson recalled when remembering the first time he saw Ortiz after he was traded to Minnesota in 1996.
The entire story is worth a read. Check it out here.
Thumbnail photo via Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports Images
