ESPN+ has found a format that works for series that dive into the history of our favorite sports. We’ve seen it with Peyton’s Places covering the NFL, we’ve seen it with Abby’s Places covering soccer, Rowdy’s Places covering combat sports and even Eli’s Places which took a look at the world of College Football. Now, Hall of Fame designated hitter David Ortiz, better known as Big Papi, takes on a tour of some baseball history in Big Papi’s Places.
The first episode, titled “The Green Monster,” unsurprisingly takes us inside one of the most instantly recognizable features of any Major League ballpark. Back in his old stomping grounds, Ortiz chats with some of the employees at Fenway Park as well as a Red Sox legend.
Keeping up with how these series have gone in the past, the episode opens with Peyton Manning recruiting Big Papi to take over this show to tell the story of baseball, rather than football. The two meet in The National Ballpark Museum and go over some history together before Peyton convinces Papi to take the reins. In the early going, Ortiz comes off a bit dry as the host of a show, but once he gets into his element he warms up quite a bit.
Ortiz heads out to Fenway Park in Boston, the stadium he called home for many years. He’s not there to focus on the stadium as a whole though. Instead, Papi takes an extended look at the Green Monster, the 37-foot tall left field wall in Fenway Park.
The presence of this massive wall changes the way the game is played in Fenway Park and to break that down, Ortiz meets with longtime Red Sox left fielder Jim Rice. Before they get into how to play with the Monster at your back, Rice, who didn’t get the memo not to wear stripes on TV, takes us through some of the history of the wall. One of the interesting facts he reveals is that the reason the wall was built in the first place was to keep fans from watching the game for free from outside the stadium.
Ortiz then gets hands-on as Rice walks him through how to play left field in Fenway Park. He shows him some of the tricks of the wall, including a ladder that could send a ball off in any direction. He hits a few balls off the wall and lets Papi play the bounce. Considering he was a first baseman before becoming a DH for most of his career, he plays it pretty well.
Ortiz then takes to the Monster seats, located on top of the iconic wall, where he watches the Red Sox take batting practice. After a while, someone manages to hit one up into the seats where Big Papi makes the catch. But the main focus of this episode isn’t on top of the wall or even in front of it. Papi follows in the footsteps of his former teammate Manny Ramirez and heads inside the wall next.
Ortiz meets with Green Monster scoreboard operator Nate Moulter, who has been working inside the wall for 16 years. Moulter shows Papi some of the history inside the wall, including some x’s that were marked on the wall to track the homeruns of legendary player Ted Williams. They also spot the signatures of Ramirez and former pitcher Andy Pettitte. These are the kinds of things fans are going to want to see in this series because of the amount of history there is with the game of baseball.
Ortiz then tries his hand at operating the scoreboard himself during a game with the Braves. He first takes a moment to add his signature inside the wall before the Braves give him some work to do by scoring a run. Moulter gives him the plate to put up on the scoreboard, and after almost accidentally putting the run up for the wrong team, he gets it right. After doing it once though, he decides it’s not a job for him.
As the episode comes to a close, Papi messes with a remote controlled camera joke around with the producer. He then sticks his head out in front of the camera to reveal it was him and not the scoreboard operators, who were laughing at the thought of the producer going crazy.
This was a fun first episode to a series that should be very interesting. It took a minute for Ortiz to really open up, which is contradictory to his normal personality, but once he did, he really settled into the role. There is a whole lot of history around the game of baseball just waiting to be explored and with a host like Big Papi, this series is sure to be both informative and a whole lot of fun.
You can watch Big Papi’s Places on ESPN+ now. Fans can subscribe to ESPN+ for just $6.99 a month and can cancel at any time.