David Ortiz on the mend: shooting and recovery

jose melendez

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Let's hope that they're actually people involved in the shooting. Among the characteristics of bad PDs is they tend to arrest innocent people and torture them into confessions.
 

shaggydog2000

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Apr 5, 2007
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Unbelievable.

With as many people involved in planning/carrying out this attack, and a target who was completely unaware and helpless, it's amazing that there was not a much worse outcome.
Shooting the gun accurately is the hardest part. Not like the guy can stop and aim for very long, and is probably full of nervous adrenaline just walking up. It's easy to move a gun while trying to pull a trigger and have it go nowhere near where you intended.

On the other hand, bullets do a ton of damage, and there are a lot of important organs in a human torso. So, I wouldn't want to take my chances getting shot from close range either.
 

nolasoxfan

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YTF

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Put that into context of how cheap it would be to take any one of us out.
I’m always amazed at how cheaply life is valued by other bipeds on this planet. A fucking pox on all of them.
Certainly not trying to justify any of this, but I would imagine that the price on Ortiz represents a large amount of money to a great deal of Dominicans. That said, you're point stands.
 

Salem's Lot

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Put that into context of how cheap it would be to take any one of us out.
I’m always amazed at how cheaply life is valued by other bipeds on this planet. A fucking pox on all of them.
It’s scary that you can have a legend executed down there for less than the cost that some people paid to get into the Bruins game tonight. Guaranteed at least a couple of tickets on the glass went for around $8k.
 

doc

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Jul 14, 2005
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It’s scary that you can have a legend executed down there for less than the cost that some people paid to get into the Bruins game tonight. Guaranteed at least a couple of tickets on the glass went for around $8k.
Ace tickets had on the glass seats mid ice at $18,000, on the glass behind the goal were at $11,000 about 2 hours ago.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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When I was in Lesotho you’d always here that you could get a hit done for a few hundred USD
So how much did you actually spend?

In all seriousness, per your other post, we should probably be careful in discussing the perpetrators and motives until we know more. Like any high profile case, the authorities, who likely are just trying to do their best, are probably under extreme pressure to "solve" this whole thing. People need look no further than the current headlines about Linda Fairstein and the Netflix series "When They See Us".
 

dhappy42

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Oct 27, 2013
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Is “Third World” derogatory? Ir just obsolete? I thought “First World” referred to the US and other capitalist counties, while “Second World” applied to the USSR, China and their communist satellites. “Third World” was everybody else.
 

djbayko

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He's not going to suit up, you know. Now that would be something.
Oh, I know it wasn’t a perfect analogy, you party pooper!

At least for me, most of the hilarity came from the image of David roaming the halls of Mass General in a hospital gown, dragging an IV pole with one hand and drinking a beer with the other
 
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staz

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The cradle of the game.
Chara plays with injured jaw.
Ortiz: Hold my beer...
This is quite good.

I just can't get over how very lucky Papi was. I mean, to survive a gunshot wound is impressive enough, but hit like that has to cause mortal wounds like 98% of the time. I am not a religious man, but geez...
 

j44thor

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Aug 1, 2006
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I find calls to murder another human being offensive, especially when that call to murder comes in angry response to someone calling for another person to be murdered.
Would the world be a better place with the guy that ordered the hit on Papi or Papi because you might only be able to chose one.
Not to make this a V&N post but I have zero empathy for anyone that takes or attempts to take another life. Something I will simply never understand is how people feel otherwise.
 

djbayko

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Would the world be a better place with the guy that ordered the hit on Papi or Papi because you might only be able to chose one.
Not to make this a V&N post but I have zero empathy for anyone that takes or attempts to take another life. Something I will simply never understand is how people feel otherwise.
That’s a straw man. I think people are more likely subscribing to the whole “innocent until proven guilty” principle of Western law.

For example, we saw videos of at least two people getting the shit kicked out of them the night of the shooting. Now, there are lots of possibilities here, including those videos not even being relevant to Ortiz. But if they are, and only one person was arrested, as reported, it makes you wonder if vigilante jusitce got something wrong that night.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to pile on doc for having raw emotions that many of us most civilized people have probably had at one point in time or another. And he shouldn’t delete a post that conveys honest feelings. Maybe we just want to recognize that this inner conflict - the desire for vengeance as well as a fair justice system - exists in many of us, but certainly society as a whole.
 

Average Reds

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I mean shit, guys, if advocating for someone to be murdered isn’t against board policy, I don’t know what is.
This is the main Red Sox forum and so it’s not my area to moderate. But, I do want to respond to this.

My sense is that there is a lot of emotional angst/venting going on, which accounts for people saying things they may sincerely feel in the moment, but don’t mean. (Does anyone believe that anyone here would actually hire someone to take out the alleged perps here? Or do it themselves?)

That said, the mindless advocacy of violence is both offensive/distasteful and unproductive. So I’m going to (at least temporarily) remove some of the more extreme posts and suggest that we move on from this topic and focus on more productive areas.
 

canderson

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Jul 16, 2005
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This story is bizarre. One of the men arrested is wanted in Reading, Pa., for attempted murder and the other is wanted in NJ for two armed robberies.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Dec 19, 2009
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Do we know whatever happened to the whole inspirational message he was supposed to record to play at the Bruins game? Even the radio announcers were saying it was coming at some point on the broadcast. Did he just not have the energy? Did his wife intervene and prohibit it? Was it still being produced when they went down 1-0 or 2-0 in the first and then scrapped? I'm still confused as to what happened there.
 

Doc Zero

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Is “Third World” derogatory? Ir just obsolete? I thought “First World” referred to the US and other capitalist counties, while “Second World” applied to the USSR, China and their communist satellites. “Third World” was everybody else.
Will happily take this to PMs to discuss further, but "Global South" is the term you're looking for.
 

barbed wire Bob

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Is “Third World” derogatory? Ir just obsolete? I thought “First World” referred to the US and other capitalist counties, while “Second World” applied to the USSR, China and their communist satellites. “Third World” was everybody else.
Will happily take this to PMs to discuss further, but "Global South" is the term you're looking for.
The term “Third World” is hopelessly out of date so it shouldn’t be used to describe a country/region. The term has been replaced by “Developing World “ or “Global South” but both labels have their haters. This Blog post from NPR outlines the pitfalls of using labels. IMO, it’s best to be specific and just name the country, or if that doesn’t work, the geographic region (i.e. “the Caribbean” or “Northern Europe”).

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it
End of sidetrack and back to your regularly scheduled program.
 

Hank Scorpio

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https://www.instagram.com/p/ByopdkPjyoc/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Papi’s daughter issues a statement:

I would like to formally thank everyone who has reached out so kindly to feed us, transport us, and support us. Those who have extended prayers, thoughts, and love, I thank you. If there is one thing this world should know it is the admiration I have for this man, my father. I find myself complaining on a daily basis yet chaos has struck but my dad hasn’t complained once. I promise on my life he has not once looked for pity, tears, or even indicated how he feels in his current state. He may be hungry (he’s eating only ice right now) and he may be tired but you know what he said not more than 3 minutes ago? “Even the toothpaste tastes good here.” I hoped to share a bit of optimism in a time like this. People keep asking: [if] there is anything [they] can do. There is one thing everyone can do. Anytime you want to complain or feel sorry practice David’s method and turn that sorrow into optimism. #myRemarkableDadDavid #IceChipDiet#ThankYouDoctorsDominicanandAmerican
 
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Marciano490

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Nov 4, 2007
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Nothing in a hospital tastes good. That man is more optimistic laid up with a gunshot wound than I am on my best day.
 

Hank Scorpio

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This story continues to get weirder and weirder.

From a jail cell that looks like any pair of schmoes with a pickup truck and some bolt cutters could spring a prisoner, David Ortiz's shooter spoke with reporters through a broken window.

The shooter admits to shooting Ortiz as part of an $8,000 dollar hit, but claims Ortiz wasn't his target. "I got confused", he claims.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-ortiz-shooting-suspect-claims-red-sox-legend-wasnt-intended-target/
Not that this guy has any credibility, but who knows what to believe. The guy is going to prison either way. I'm not sure how highly regarded David Ortiz is among incarcerated Dominicans, but maybe this guy just thinks it'll help him out on the inside if he claims his target was some lowlife, a rat, or a bad person - and not a national folk hero.

Recovery aside, it's pretty much a guarantee Papi's been interviewed by authorities by this point, right?

"Do you know the shooter?"
"Do you know anyone who would want to hurt/kill you?"

And so on...
 

donutogre

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Jul 20, 2005
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The Washington Post spoke to Ortiz's doctors on the scene, which gives a much better picture of the situation he was facing.

The assassin’s point-blank gunshot pierced the right side of David Ortiz’s back, tore through his liver and intestines and exited just to the right of his navel, still traveling fast enough to lodge in a companion’s thigh.

“Please don’t let me die,” Ortiz pleaded again and again to doctors in the emergency room. “Please don’t let me die.”

It was 9:15 p.m. Sunday and “Big Papi,” the beloved former Boston Red Sox slugger, was in real trouble, his surgeons said in their first extensive interview. But quick action by them and bystanders, Ortiz’s size and sheer luck may have protected him from a worse fate.

“He was stable. He was talking. But I can’t say he was in good condition,” said Jose Smester, the first surgeon to attend to Ortiz after the star ballplayer was wounded in a bar Sunday evening. “ . . . He was at a point, let’s say, where if he wasn’t taken care of right away, he could enter a critical stage.”
Sob.

“The injuries he had were lethal, even separately, if they wouldn’t have been taken care of right away, especially the one on the liver,” Smester said. “But in that moment, you don’t think about death, you think about what you have to do.”

“The advantage is that he was always stable,” he added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/quick-work-luck-saved-red-sox-slugger-ortiz-surgeons-say-in-first-interview/2019/06/14/1873b66c-8eaf-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html?utm_term=.37928701207e