The Best of David Ortiz’s Q&A with Sports Illustrated

Photo via AP

David Ortiz took a break from his historic farewell (maybe?) season to sit down with Sports Illustrated for interview coinciding with his new Buffalo Wild Wings ad. The Red Sox slugger dished on a wide variety of topics, from the petition started to erect a bronze statue in his likeness outside Fenway Park, to the Deflategate saga ensnaring his buddy Tom Brady, to how many wings he can pound in a sitting.

Here are some highlights.

On Yankees fans:

“Whenever I’m in New York and I decide to go to public places, they are all cool with me. They can’t wait for me to retire, obviously.”

On getting a statue:

“Humbly, I can tell you that I appreciate the fact that fans want that to happen at some point. Whenever you see the fans looking forward to something like that, you know you’ve done things pretty well. If it happens, you know, I’ll be a happy man.”

On Deflategate:

“I think it’s stupid, to be honest with you…If I turn on the TV on Sunday to watch a Patriots game and I know that Tom Brady is not playing, I would turn off the TV. I don’t want to watch that game.”

On Patriots coach Bill Belichick:

“I’ve met him before. He’s a great guy. The thing is that people watch what we do on the field, they want us to be a nice guy but that’s not how it is.”

On whether he can sing like his daughter:

“No chance. Well, when I’m taking a shower I do but everyone is a good singer when they’re taking a shower.”

On how many buffalo wings he can eat in a sitting:

“Well, going back to my younger day when I could really crush wings, I would say probably 1,000. Now I can only have four or five. No more than that.”

You can check out Sports Illustrated‘s full interview here.