He had almost a month to do it, but David Ortiz wasted no time in batting the two missing homeruns to join the 500-homerun club.
He did so on Saturday evening, 12 September 2015 in St. Petersburg, Florida in the game the Boston Red Sox won 10-4 against the Tampa Bay Rays. At the age of 39, Dominican David Ortiz has become only the 27th player in Major League Baseball history to reach 500 homers, and only the fourth to do so for the Boston Red Sox, including fellow Dominican Manny Ramirez. The other Dominicans who have hit 500 homeruns are Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez.
Ortiz was originally scheduled to take Saturday off, but he managed to talk his way into the lineup for the game and the rest is history.
Watch his 500th homerun at:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/2015/09/12/watch-david-ortiz-historic-home-run/PSOaC8vu91FQnMTYyTV0UP/story.html
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/09/12/ortiz/frFTZFDCflfAfL0DvYkphK/story.html
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25298487/historic-late-career-power-numbers-carried-david-ortiz-to-500-homers
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/milestones/index.jsp?feature=five_hundred_hr