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This week marks what may be Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz‘s last three games at Yankee Stadium. An esteemed adversary among New York baseball fans, Ortiz couldn’t depart without saying goodbye. Ortiz leaves Yankee fans with a few words to remember in a heartfelt (and humorous) goodbye letter published by The Players Tribune.

“Let me tell you something,” Ortiz writes. “If 50,000 people moon me, I promise you two things. First, I’m gonna laugh so hard I might start crying. Then when the tears dry, I’m gonna step up to the plate and try to hit the ball all the way to the choo choo train. You gotta be careful. You guys don’t have Mariano no more, you know what I’m saying?”

Jokes aside, he genuinely cares about Yankee fans.

“Listen, Yankee fans. I gotta admit something to you,” Ortiz continues. “And I’m serious about this. I got love for you. It’s just a little bit of love, but I do. When I came to this country and I was trying to make it to the big leagues, I looked at guys like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and I was almost in awe. When I got to play against the Yankees my first few years, I would watch some of the things Jeter would do in the field like I was just a fan.”

He then goes on to express how the Red Sox’s rivalry with the Yankees molded him into the player he is today.

“The intensity of that competition is what I’m gonna miss the most when I’m done. I could wake up in the morning and my body could be feeling like sh*t, but as soon as the bus pulls up to Yankee Stadium and I see that white fence on the upper deck, I’m like, It’s on. Me, Manny and Pedro used to sit in the dugout watching the Yankees’ pitchers warming up, and we’d say to each other, ‘Alright, how we gonna take these mother——- down today?’”

Throughout his career, Ortiz has hit 53 home runs and drove in 171 runs in 240 games against New York.

Read his farewell in its entirety here.

SOURCE: The Players Tribune, NESN | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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