Retirement gifts are so damn weird. You spend 30 years working at a place and then the company gets you a watch so every day you put it on you remember that you spent at least eight hours a day, five days a week, for 30 years pushing papers or something. Here's to living that good life, right?Retirement gifts for athletes are a little different. Ever since Mariano Rivera announced his retirement before his final season and teams decided that they needed to get him something on the way out, it's become a thing. This is like one of those odd one-upmanship games between organizations."There are no gift registries on these player tours," Minnesota Twins president Dave St. Peter told the Wall Street Journal. "You can't go to Macy's and say, 'What am I going to give to Derek Jeter?'"So Jeter gets a huge surfboard from the Anaheim Angels. What the hell is he gonna do with a surfboard? But once you do that, you gotta go bigger or better or more interesting the next time around. This year, David Ortiz is taking his victory lap.He hit Seattle this week and the Mariners felt obliged to give him something. Like, pretty much anything.He got a framed copy of his first professional baseball contract. That's cool. He signed it in 1992, when he was 17 and before the Mariners traded him and the Twins released him and then he found a home in Boston. Although, you figure he has a copy, right? Isn't that why we sign all of these things twice?You'd think that be all. Ortiz gets his contract, takes a photo with Edgar Martinez, hits the cage for some more BP. But then the Mariners give him 34 pounds of Northwest King Salmon. Is that going home with him on the team plane? Does he have to make it now before it goes bad? Is he getting a whole fish? So many questions here.But that's not all! Ortiz gets one last gift. Here come Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, and Felix Hernandez wearing sunglasses and Flava Flav clocks around their necks to bring out a painting. Ortiz gets a clock, too, and a gold watch. Is that, like, supposed to symbolize that Ortiz can turn back time? No, wait, that's Cher. Definitely don't get him anything from the Cher collection.
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And that painting—Ortiz actually looked excited about that painting of him with some flair—is that cubist influence? Anyway, back to the main point. Retirement gifts are weird. Maybe the Mariners should've stuck with just the watch.The Mariners beat the Red Sox 3-1.[MLB]Presented to @davidortiz: his original contract with the Mariners, 34 lb of salmon and a surprise from some friends. pic.twitter.com/VZGp7WkjrI
— Mariners (@Mariners) August 4, 2016