Watch David Ortiz Homer In His Final Grapefruit League At Bat

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 18, 2025, 7:10 AM

watch david ortiz homer in his final grapefruit league at bat

The good folks at Hammond Stadium witnessed a fun top of the fifth inning during Thursday’s game between the Red Sox and Twins. Two batters after Byron Buxton made a stunning diving catch, David Ortiz put forth his own highlight: a long home run on a 3-1 Kyle Gibson offering that will stand as the last in... Take a look: Back in November, Ortiz announced his intention to retire following the season. He’ll enter the season with 503 regular-season home runs, good for 27th all-time. With another 30-homer effort -- and he’s reached that mark in each of the past three years -- he’ll secure a spot in the top-20.

The Red Sox will conclude their exhibition schedule with two games against the Blue Jays in Montreal: one on Friday night, the other on Saturday afternoon. Send this article to your social connections. Send this article to your social connections. On Thursday, the Red Sox played the Twins at Hammond Stadium, the site of David Ortiz’s first ever spring training game just over 20 years ago. And the 40-year-old designated hitter went out with a bang, homering in his final Grapefruit League at-bat. https://twitter.com/GustanDeportes/status/715612034738622464

In a Ted Williams-like moment (OK, not so much), Ortiz homered in his final spring training at-bat in Florida. 1st this year. Boston Red Sox's David Ortiz (34) follows through on a ground-out with the bases loaded as Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli watches in the fifth inning of an interleague spring training baseball game, Monday,... (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) David Ortiz ended the Florida portion of spring training with a bang on Thursday. In Oritz's final at-bat in Boston's Grapefruit League finale against the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, Ortiz launched a shot to right field.

It marked his first homer of the spring. Boston's last game at JetBlue Park came on Tuesday when the team and city of Fort Myers honored Ortiz. Thursday's game was at Hammond Stadium, a few miles down the road from JetBlue Park, so Ortiz's homer made a fitting goodbye to the Fort Myers faithful. The Red Sox play two exhibition games this weekend in Montreal against the Toronto Blue Jays. Every professional athlete hopes to “go out on top” at the end of their career. No one likes to think of struggling through a final season and not being invited back, like a hypothetical baseball player putting up disappointing numbers and then wishing he had perhaps retired a year...

When Ted Williams hit just .254 in 1959, the year he celebrated his 41st birthday, it was almost 100 points below his career .349 batting average to that point. He came back – after insisting on a 30 percent pay cut from Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey because of his under-performance in 1959 – and boosted his average for 1960 to .316... That put him over 500, to 521. Then he retired.1 On November 18, 2015, his 40th birthday, another venerated Red Sox left-handed hitter, David Ortiz, announced he was going to play one more season and then retire.2 Unlike Williams in 1959, Ortiz’s production had... Ortiz had passed the 500-homer milestone, reaching 503 career home runs through 2015.

In addition, Ortiz had three World Series championship rings with the Red Sox (2004, 2007, and 2013), a team accomplishment that had eluded Williams. Ortiz’s decision to return in 2016 proved correct, on both individual and team levels. He had another successful year, leading the major leagues in doubles (48), slugging percentage (.620) and on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS) (1.021), while topping the American League with 127 RBIs. By the time Boston hosted the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park in the final three games of the 2016 season, the Red Sox had already clinched the AL East title, a rebound from... The final weekend began with the Friday night game on the last day of September. A day earlier, the New York Yankees had honored their longtime rival and his family at Yankee Stadium, with both Ortiz’s wife and daughter receiving floral bouquets.

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — In his final spring training at-bat, David Ortiz hit his first home run of the spring in the Boston Red Sox’s 7-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Thursday. Ortiz announced on his 40th birthday in November that this will be his final season. He played in 342 Grapefruit League games in Fort Myers over 20 seasons with the Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox. With two outs in the fifth, Ortiz launched a ball over the right field wall. “Great,” Ortiz said of his home run.

“These are Fort Myers fans that support the Twins, support the Red Sox and I’ve been here for a while. I bet you a lot of these people watched me playing when I played for the Miracles down here. I’m pretty sure they’re super happy with how my career has gone. You see a kid start and 20 years later, you see his career and being the way it has been, and then you get to see his last spring training game, and it’s something... Ortiz struck out to end the first inning and grounded out to end the third before his home run.

Watch David Ortiz Homer In His Final Grapefruit League At Bat

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