The Orioles retirement gift to David Ortiz: The phone he destroyed

For Orioles fans, the most memorable of the moments of the career of David Ortiz is surely the time he vandalized the visiting dugout at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in the middle of a temper tantrum.

Prior to Thursday’s series finale against the Red Sox, which will be the last time Ortiz plays in Camden Yards in the regular season (you never know about the playoffs), the Orioles took their turn participating in the retirement tour with a little quality trolling.

As Orioles broadcaster Jim Hunter listed Ortiz’s career accomplishments, he also made mention of the dominance of Ortiz at the hands of former Oriole Brian Matusz. The O’s then showed a little Ortiz highlight package consisting entirely of Ortiz hitting home runs against the Yankees, perhaps hoping for a little compromise between the O’s and Red Sox fans in attendance.

Then, because they had to - really, they HAD to - they played the video clip of Ortiz’s dugout phone destruction, and, for the kicker, brought out Adam Jones bearing the very same phone that Ortiz destroyed on July 27, 2013:

Never let it be said that the Orioles can’t carry out a long-term plan. They saved that phone three years ago, just in case, and now it finally came in handy. Ortiz left the phone behind when he left the field, as you can see in the lower right picture above, with Jones holding out the phone as if to say, “Hey, you forgot something!”

The Orioles also donated $10,000 in Ortiz’s name to the World Pediatric Project, a non-profit organization that provides care for critically-ill children in nations where that is harder to come by - including the Dominican Republic, where Ortiz was born.