Three years ago, the woman who is now my wife asked me to name my favorite Red Sox player growing up. It was a tough question: I had always held an irrational affection for the Gator, but nothing resembling favoritism. "Well," she said, "how about now?" "David Ortiz," I said. No hesitation needed.Thus when the publishers of Ortiz's new memoir, Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits, contacted me and asked me if I wanted review the book on this blog, I did a little jig: not only because a publisher was asking me for my opinion (one of the more gratifying things about running a blog is people acknowledging respect for your written thoughts), but because I would be writing about the writings of my favorite player. As it turns out, not too hard of a task: doing my best to keep things objective, I think the book is pretty good.
My biggest concern before I started reading My Story... was that the book might read like a typical post-game interview; a collection of bland quotes and carefully edited stories that said everything by saying nothing. I was curious as to how much of himself David would put into his book. I needn't have worried - it being David Ortiz I shouldn't have worried anyway - and I can happily say that the results, while occasionally a little repetitive, are an excellent window in Big Papi's thoughts, dreams and motivations over the ten years he's been in the major leagues.
Written in a fun, loose, conversational style that reads like an informal pre-season chat between Ortiz and the reader, My Story...has two big things going for it:
- The free-flowing narrative Ortiz and Massarotti adopted when editing Papi's conversations. Everything fits the time line of Ortiz's life, from his childhood in the Dominican through his time in the minors and majors with the Mariners, Twins and Red Sox, but thankfully, there's no rigid structure. If Papi wants to introduce a side thread into the main weave of his story, he does so as naturally as if he was telling you the story in person. It's very effective style; I don't think there's a better way to make a naturally distant figure like a celebrity seem more human.
- To help establish historical perspective and to keep Ortiz's story in context, Massarotti wrote several interjectory chapters that he calls "Stepping Out of the Box." Each chapter covers someone from baseball who's had an effect on Ortiz's professional career - Pedro, Theo, Torii Hunter - and reinforces, in Massarotti's sportswriter style, one of My Story...'s main themes: no man succeeds on his own. Mixing with Papi's looser interviews, the straightforward Massarotti chapters give the book a nice balance.
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