Even David Ortiz is a Victim of Our Times

Not David Ortiz too!

I was thinking this to myself when I heard the news that David Ortiz was shot in the back in his native Dominican Republic.  Big Papi shot?  It couldn't be happening to one of the most famous baseball players in modern baseball history.  He was just 43 years old for God's sake with a wife and two kids.

After a couple of days of reflection, it's apparent that Ortiz is just another victim of our times. 

Mass shootings and random acts of violence so numerous that I've lost count.  The United States was never a lone actor when it came to mass killing.  We just had more news outlets reporting it.

Social media profiles that are so ubiquitous that we can follow around our heroes on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook 24 hours a day.  I'm sure numerous people knew exactly where Ortiz was going to be at 9pm on Sunday night.  I'm sure the motive hunters didn't need any sort of tip off that Ortiz was going to be at the Dial Bar and Lounge with his buddies.  I mean the video seems to indicate that the shooter knew exactly where he was sitting! 

News outlets (from both sides of the aisle look for ratings) fomenting hatred, intolerance and bigotry to such a degree that people with just a touch of the "crazy" are getting more and more likely to find someone to hurt.  Kind of like The Running Man (And Arnold Schwarzenegger was the victim of his own assault just a couple of weeks ago...)

But he is just part of the violent news cycle that we look at with fascination.  People make money by getting clicks and people get clicks by being bombastic.  And that's assuming what we're reading is real and not a deep fake.  Things are moving on from the act itself and to the sordid motive that Ortiz was fooling around with a druglord's wife.  Soon it will move from that to the stories behind all of those who have been captured and why 7 men agreed to kill for $8000.  Soon we'll move on completely to the next story.

All I know is that this could have been a lot worse for Ortiz and us.  It just makes me think of his famous line after the Marathon bombing.  This is our f*cking Papi.