“Big Papi” simply is just the perfect nickname for David Ortiz.
The now-retired Boston Red Sox legend is known as Big Papi among baseball fans, his former teammates and opponents. But just how did the nickname come into play?
Allow NESN Red Sox analyst Jerry Remy to explain:
“When I would sit in the clubhouse and he’d come in, guys would call him ‘Papi,’” Remy said on the latest episode of “The TC & Jerry Podcast” with Tom Caron. “At that time, I wasn’t exactly sure what Papi meant. Now I know it’s like a father. Everybody was calling him Papi. So he started to have this success. I’m looking at the guy, the guy’s a monster for crying out loud. He’s huge. So I went up to him one day in the clubhouse and I said David, ‘do you mind if I call you ‘Big Papi.’ He looked at me and he he goes, ‘No. I kind of like that.’ So I said, ‘Ok, I’m going with it tonight.’ And from that point on I started calling him Big Papi on the air. And he’s still Big Papi today.”
New episode of the TC & Jerry Podcast: @Jerry_Remy & @TomCaron discuss…
– MLB season in Japan vs. Spring Training sites
– David Ortiz late career renessaince
– Origin of the "Big Papi" nicknameList to the full podcast here: https://t.co/dHrkZoS5Sq pic.twitter.com/ag2FJJlbTV
— NESN (@NESN) April 15, 2020
We’re glad Ortiz loved it so much. It’s hard to think what he would have been called had Big Papi never come into play.
