David Ortiz met with reporters for the first time since he was shot at a bar in the Dominican Republic Monday, opening up on his recovery and how the experience has changed him.
Oritz detailed the feeling of getting shot and how a good samaritan rushed him out of the bar and to the hospital before it was too late in an interview with Bob Hohler, so Monday's session was a chance for the Red Sox legend to open up a bit further.
Even though Ortiz nearly died due to an act of senseless violence in his own country, he explained that he is not afraid to return home but will have to be more careful in the future.
"Now, I guess, once I'm down there, I guess I'm going to have to have my security," Ortiz said. "I never did it because I thought it was too lousy and I never thought anybody would do anything like that to me, or to anyone. But you learn.
"I was sitting on the street, with my back to the street," he said. "Like, when you do things like that, you know that you don’t have a problem with anyone. Because if you have a problem with someone, you’d never put your back to the street because you know that’s how somebody could easily attack you. It happened to me knowing that I don’t have enemies anywhere, so now I’m going to have to be more careful about it, that’s all."
The future Hall of Fame slugger has hired former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis to investigate his shooting so Ortiz can find out why he was targeted the night of June 9th. Reports after the shooting suggested that Ortiz was not the intended target by the gunman, but either way, Ortiz wants to know for sure.
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"I've got to just be able to make sure it wasn't directed to me because I don't do things to deserve anything like that, you know? So I pretty much hired my own group, you know, to get together with them to find out and go through all the details and stuff," he said. "I respect what they came out with, but I would like to know if there is something else."
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