Now batting in the cannabis industry: David Ortiz. 

Just four days after his induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Big Papi announced that he is launching his own line of cannabis products, confirming rumors that had been swirling around the industry for years. Produced and sold by Revolutionary Clinics, his first product is a line of pre-rolled blunts called Sweet Sluggers, which vaguely resemble a baseball bat. According to a press release, additional products such as vape cartridges, salves and a chocolate edible made with fair trade Dominican chocolate are also in the works. 

Unlike many other athletes who have launched their own cannabis brands, Ortiz had no known links to the plant during his playing days. In fact, according to one teammate, he was hostile to the idea of marijuana use during his time with the Red Sox. 

Speaking on the "Bradfo Sho" podcast hosted by Red Sox beat writer Rod Bradford, former closer Jonathon Papelbon said that Big Papi refused to try cannabis, despite Papelbon insisting that it would help him recover from baseball-related wear and tear.

“I tried to get (Ortiz) to understand that when you can recover quicker, you’re gonna be better for the next day,” Papelbon said about his conversations about cannabis with the seven-time Silver Slugger, “I tried to always explain that to him, man. Early on in his career, all he would say is ‘You crazy a** white dude. You redneck crazy, man!’”

Founded in 2014, this endeavor will be the first celebrity cannabis brand in Revolutionary’s portfolio. In addition to a cultivation facility in Fitchburg and dispensaries in Cambridge and Somerville (and soon Leominster), the company is one of the larger wholesale suppliers of cannabis products in Massachusetts. Big Papi’s products will be available at a number of retailers, including Worcester-based dispensaries such as Diem Cannabis and Bud’s Goods and Provisions. 

News of Papi’s new cannabis endeavor invoked strong reactions, from Massachusetts all the way to his hometown of Santo Domingo.

When asked for comment, some people in the cannabis space were excited to see the 10-time MLB All-Star and three-time World Series champion getting involved.

“Big Papi represents the American dream and serves as an inspiration and reminder that diversity makes our country stronger — inside and outside cannabis.” said Andrew Kline, senior counsel of Cannabis Law and Policy at Perkins Coie LLP, a multinational law firm. 

A number of cannabis brands in Massachusetts also celebrated Ortiz’s involvement in the industry on social media.  

However, not everybody was thrilled with Ortiz’s choice of Revolutionary Clinics as his pathway into the industry. The controversy stems from a lawsuit the company filed against the City of Cambridge back in 2019, where they attempted to block a provision that would have limited recreational cannabis licenses to Economic Empowerment applicants. These applicants are people who the state deemed to have been disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs based on criteria established by the Cannabis Control Commission.  

Facing widespread backlash and a dwindling chance of their challenge being successful, Revolutionary eventually dropped the suit, and pledged to help increase equity in the cannabis industry, saying in a statement that they would “focus more of our time, attention, and financial resources to help build equity programs in the communities we serve."

Still, Revolutionary’s behavior has left some wishing that Papi had chosen a different team to debut his lineup of cannabis products.

“I'm disturbed that Big Papi has teamed up with a company that told a judge the Cambridge equity priority period for local adult-use cannabis licenses was 'racially discriminatory' against white-owned companies,” said Grant Smith Ellis, a cannabis activist and watchdog independent journalist who has frequently covered controversies surrounding Revolutionary in the past. “One hopes that, in light of that history, Ortiz and his team would reconsider their partnership. With so many local operators in the state, who do not have a history of anti-equity behavior, I am certain there is someone worthy of his star power and support.”

In addition to the controversy surrounding equity, Revolutionary Clinics has also previously been subject to disciplinary action from local regulators. In June 2020, the company was fined $120,000, following a state investigation that determined the company sold vape cartridges that exceed the allowable levels of ethanol. Regulators determined that cleaning solution that was used to sanitize extraction equipment was the culprit of the contamination.

Some voices in the Dominican Republic were also opposed to Ortiz’s entry into the cannabis industry, albeit for completely different reasons than local cannabis activists. 

Despite Big Papi being one of the country’s biggest icons, some commentators in his native country were less than thrilled about his new weed venture. Many of them claimed that marijuana use is a gateway to harder drugs, or said that Ortiz’s involvement with cannabis would send the wrong message to young ballplayers.

Alfredo Villasmil — a writer for RÉCORD, a Dominican sports news site — rattled off a list of supposed negative effects from cannabis use before telling readers, “I don't know about you, but it seems like a lot of side effects to me to smoke a joint just because Big Papi, who isn't a doctor, said he did fine with it.” 

Writing in Listin Diario, the oldest Dominican newspaper in publication, sports journalist Hector J. Cruz suggested (perhaps somewhat sarcastically) that the launch of Big Papi’s cannabis brand may represent a sign that the end of the world is near, while Diario Digitial's Julio Martinez Pozo dismissed the notion that the legality of Ortiz’s involvement in the cannabis industry made it morally acceptable.

“[Marijuana] is legal in twenty states of the United States? Big deal!” he wrote. “In that country it is also legal to buy highly lethal firearms.”

Cannabis use is still highly stigmatized in the Dominican Republic, where possession of just a few grams of the drug can result in up to two years in prison. 

According to estimates produced by cannabis data firm New Frontier Data, the country of over 10.8 million people has only about 32,000 cannabis consumers. It’s possible that Ortiz’s involvement may help destigmatize cannabis use to a certain extent, but it’s clear from the reaction that this will not happen overnight. 

Jackson Mejia, a native of the Dominican Republic who now resides in Worcester and is Co-CEO of Delivered, a Massachusetts-based cannabis delivery company, wasn’t too surprised by the Dominican backlash. 

“Attitudes are — for lack of a better word — backward on this issue there,” he said.

As one of the only executives of Dominican descent in the Massachusetts cannabis industry, Meija said he hopes to get in touch with Ortiz to see if he’s interested in getting involved with his company as well.  

Marijuana prohibitionists in Ortiz’s homeland do not need to fret too much for now; Papi Cannabis products will be available only in Massachusetts for the foreseeable future. And while Revolutionary has been open about its desire to expand into other state markets, I can not see Ortiz’s brand having much resonance outside New England. 

In places such as New York or Maryland, it’s perhaps more likely that Yankee and Orioles fans would want to burn the packaging rather than the product inside.