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Big Papi's decline? Not this fall

By Howard Bryant
ESPN.com

Monday, May 11, 2009

BOSTON -- The walls are closing in on David Ortiz. He can feel it, the cold breeze of doubt whistling through each swing and miss, vexing and constant, a pebble scratching hard on the bottom of his foot: a .224 batting average and, even more glaring, no home runs in 116 at-bats from the most feared left-handed power hitter this town has seen since Mo Vaughn and, before that, Carl Yastrzemski. The 1960s Yaz, that is. There was a day not too long ago when Ortiz used to make excitement as a mother ...

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