The incredible Papi show...

OK, this is getting a little ridiculous. This is baseball, after all, where failure 7 times out of 10 over the course of your batting career can get you considered for the Hall of Fame. But David Ortiz, aka Big Papi, is now *expected* to hit a walkoff home run every time he gets the chance. It's really not fair, but it's also his fault. He keeps doing it, so what are we to expect.

Papi's latest blast came against the Cleveland Indians last night, a 3-run shot in the ninth that turned an 8-6 deficit into a 9-8 walkoff win. I was watching the game on ESPN because I could get high-def (and I couldn't get that on NESN, through MLB Extra Innings), and the ESPN broadcast started showing Papi as soon as they knew he would get an at-bat in the 9th. They showed him, and they talked about it. It was the perfect scenario for overhyping something and then it not coming true. But as he walked to the plate, I started thinking: "Oh shit, Papi can do it. Wait, I know he's going to do it." That kind of thinking is just wrong in baseball, where you get used to failing more often than succeeding. But he looked at two balls out of the strike zone, and the first pitch he saw in the strike zone -- BOOM -- over the fence in center. Game over. Celebration at home plate.

Dad calls on the phone and wakes the wife. My brother Emails with the subject line "Are you kidding me!"

Just another day in the life of Big Papi. The guy is an incredible, clutch-hitting machine, and we have absolutely no right to expect him to do it every time.

Except he does.