Ortiz brings baseball greats together for annual golf charity

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BOSTON -- As David Ortiz and his celebrity friends from the sports and pop culture worlds galivanted around Marco Island, Fla., at the 16th annual “Weekend with Papi” Celebrity Golf Classic, it was about far more than the glitz and the glamour.

The mission was to raise money -- lots of it -- for kids in the Dominican Republic and New England in need of open heart surgery.

Ortiz has been at this for over a decade-and-a-half and the impact of his foundation is bigger than anything he did on a baseball field.

The golf tournament is where so much of the money gets made, between the golfing, the sponsorships and the on-line auction.

“We raise money to save kid’s lives,” Ortiz said by phone on Friday. “As you know, all these life-saving surgeries that we have provided throughout the years have been amazing. We have been able to take care of more than 1,600 kids throughout the years and get their surgery done. We look forward to doing this every year. And the one thing that people should know also is that with $5,000, you can save a life.”

Ortiz sees living proof all the time of what his foundation has accomplished.

“Now that I live in the Dominican, I see people who are working in places where our foundation has been able to take care of their child. They come to me, thanking me. A lot of people, they don’t have the funds to be able to pay for this surgery. It’s been amazing,” said Ortiz.

How did open heart surgeries for children become the focal point of Ortiz’s foundation?

“I had a friend that basically showed up at my house, and he wanted me to give him five minutes, he wanted to show me something,” said Ortiz. “When we went to the hospital, they had this empty room with two kids and their surgery was done, but they were struggling. I remember one of these kids, he was my son’s age at the time.

“All I thought about was me being that child’s parent and not having the opportunity or the money to be able to provide for his surgery. That was my motivation to begin, and you see what we’ve got going on 16 years later.”

The goal at this year’s event was to raise $1,775,000 million.

This year’s baseball attendees include Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon, Gabe Kapler, Mookie Betts, Dustin Pedroia, Brock Holt, Jackie Bradley Jr., Kevin Youkilis, Terry Francona, Barry Larkin, Derek Jeter, Jim Rice and Alex Rodriguez among many others. There was basketball royalty on hand as Anthony Mackie and Anthony Anderson added even more of a buzz.

Aside from Ortiz himself, no baseball player committed more to the cause than the late Tim Wakefield, who died following complications from brain cancer in 2023.

“Wake supported this foundation for so long that there is not a moment while we are doing it that we don't remember him or mention him or do something related to him,” said Ortiz.