David Ortiz breaks up double play with literal heads-up baserunning maneuver
Papi breaks up double play with his head
You don't play 2,185 MLB games without learning a trick or two and no one knows that better than David Ortiz. The Red Sox designated hitter -- who is in the middle of his 19th season in the bigs -- busted out a veteran manuever that can only be described as literal heads-up baserunning against the Astros on Friday.
With Ortiz on first and Xander Bogaerts on third, Hanley Ramirez hit a sharp ground ball to the hot corner. Astros third baseman Luis Valbuena fielded it cleanly and fired to second baseman Jose Altuve to get the first out. Altuve made the catch, exchanged it cleanly and relayed to first for the out ... except Ortiz's head got in the way.
Believe it or not, Ortiz was in the process of sliding there, but the height difference between he and Altuve allowed the oddity to occur anyway. Bogaerts scored and Ramirez advanced to second. He later came around to score on a Pablo Sandoval single.
After his ordeal, Papi returned to the Sox dugout where he appeared to hold some sort of seminar.
With nearly 2,200 games and that kind of baserunning, he's about as close to a tenured professor as you're going to find in an MLB lineup.
Professor Big Papi ... it's got a nice ring to it.