Big Papi

I absolutely lurv the phenomenon, nay, the force, that is David Ortiz, or "Big Papi." Everything about the guy—his fractured English, his knack for big hits, his playful demeanor—makes him an absolutely joy to watch both on and off the field.

The subject of today's post, though, is Big Papi running (if you could call it that). As any Red Sox fan knows, there's a bit of cringing and some laughing whenever Big Papi motors around the bases.

Can't you just feel the earth shaking beneath your feet?
I thought pretty much all the jokes about Big Papi running had been made by now. But I was listening to the WEEI broadcast of tonight's game against the Twins, and the announcer said that Big Papi "rumbled over to third base on the play." Okay, I thought, rumbled is a nice word to describe that. Not exactly original, but nice all the same.

The announcer followed that call with the rather innocuous statement that Ortiz "moved from second to third." The prefect juxtaposition of "rumbled" and "moved" sent my mind into overdrive. The image I got in my head is this: Big Papi packing up his moving boxes and reluctantly renting a U-Haul to drive all the way over from second base to third. This is a delightful image for a number of reasons, most notably because Big Papi really does take up residence on one base.

This line of thought inevitably led me to wonder: What other metaphors could we use to describe Big Papi running? What are some good verbs to use, other than "rumble"? I would like to expand my vocabulary for making fun of Big Papi, and the more elaborate and complex, the better.