David Ortiz has a ring so big and blocky and shiny that friends assume it's a World Series ring. It's not.
The real thing? He doesn't wear it, except on special occasions.
"I was wearing it one time," he said, "and a fan here in Boston grabbed my hand and almost broke my fingers."
Ortiz is not exaggerating the potential of bodily harm, said Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who rarely wears his ring, either, he said, because it makes him feel too much the showoff.
"When someone shakes your hand, it hurts," Francona said. "It digs into the skin. Someone asked me to wear it once to a speaking engagement where I had to shake a lot of hands afterward, and my hand was killing me."
Manny Ramírez has worn an iPod to left field, but as elegantly as he dresses when the team is on the road, he doesn't choose his Series ring as a fashion accessory. "My wife put it in a safe," he said. "That's it."
John W. Henry, principal owner of the Sox, will be ring master this afternoon at Fenway Park when he and fellow owners Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino present the players with their spoils for winning the 2007 Series. Unlike White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who commissioned his wife to design the ring after Chicago won in 2005, Henry did it mostly himself, just as he did after the Sox won in 2004. And he is keeping the details a secret.
"There was an early version of the ring that didn't have as many diamonds," Werner said, "but when David Ortiz said, 'There should be more bling,' we agreed."
The Sox didn't skimp when they gave out a record 500 rings for 2004 - a ruby "B" was bedecked with 14 large diamonds, with another five dozen smaller diamonds adding sparkle to the ring face - and the new jewelry promises to be far more precious than the watch fobs, pendants, and medals presented to Sox champions from an earlier time.
"Players like bling," Henry wrote in an e-mail. "And when it comes to World Series rings, they want a lot of bling and they want size. So we are making, as we did three years ago, two sizes of the ring. One isn't wearable by most of us. The other is still quite large. Tim Wakefield was the most active among players in working with us on it.
"Rings continue to grow in size for all sports. But we have opted to downsize somewhat and remain simple. This year we negotiated the amount of bling with David and we compromised.
"Everyone seems very happy with it. We put the trophy on both rings, but this year my daughter gave us the idea of having two trophies on the rings for staff and players who were here in 2004. Sylvia Moon [Henry's special assistant] spearheaded the effort."
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