Legendary Boston Red Sox slugger David “Big Papi” Ortiz was “resting comfortably” Tuesday after undergoing a second surgery in Boston to repair wounds he received after being shot in the back in his native Dominican Republic Sunday night.
The retired power hitter was sitting in a nightclub Sunday night when a gunman rode up on a motorcycle and shot Ortiz once in the back, authorities said. He was rushed to a Dominican hospital where he underwent emergency six-hour surgery to repair wounds to his liver and intestines. He was then flown to Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had a second surgery, the Washington Post reports.
The operation was a success, Ortiz’s wife, Tiffany, said in a statement released by the Red Sox.
“He is stable, awake and resting comfortably this morning in the ICU, where he is expected to remain for the next several days,” she said.
Authorities are still investigating the shooting and the motive behind it.
Following the shooting, onlookers rushed and beat a man believed to be the gunman and held him for police. But police say that man, identified by authorities as 25-year-old Eddy Feliz Garcia, was the motorcycle driver, not the shooter. Police are still seeking the shooter.
Ortiz’s people are saying the shooting was a hit.
“It was the act of a hired killer,” Leo Lopez, an Ortiz spokesman, told the Dominican paper Diario Libre, the Post reports.
But Ortiz and his folks say they have no idea why anyone would want to kill the popular former pro baller.
As the Post reports:
Eliezer Salvador, a friend of Ortiz’s who said he drove the slugger to the hospital in the aftermath of the shooting, told the Associated Press he asked Ortiz if he knew of any enemies who would want to have him killed.
“No, my brother,” Ortiz replied, according to Salvador. “I’ve never wronged anyone.”
Prayers up for Big Papi.