Ortiz is even stronger as the designated giver

It’s a sight most American League pitchers would find hard to imagine: David Ortiz, the Boston Red Sox’s hulking slugger, the man whose clutch postseason performances have become the stuff of legend, blubbering like a baby.

And it was a bunch of 12-year-olds who brought him to his knees.

During an off-season visit to a hospital in the Dominican Republic, Ortiz was led into a ward where indigent children with heart diseases were being treated. A lack of oxygen left some with purple lips and purple fingernails. Doctors told Ortiz another had a hole in her heart.

Ortiz’s heart, meanwhile, was breaking.

“When it comes to kids especially, he is very, very giving,” said Boston Herald sportswriter Tony Massarotti, who got to know Ortiz intimately while working on the player’s recently published memoir.

“He just really likes being around kids. In a lot of ways, he’s a big kid himself. All of that spins off the guy’s core. He’s a very good-natured, good-hearted guy.”

On the field, Ortiz’s contributions are visible -- how could they not be considering he’s 6 feet 4 and modestly listed at 230 pounds? So the fact that he comes into tonight’s sixth game of the American League Championship Series batting .400 with three extra-base hits and an series-leading six runs scored hasn’t gone unnoticed. Nor has a postseason performance in which he has batted .500 with three homers and a 1.000 slugging percentage in eight games while tying for the playoff lead in runs and walks with 11 each.

But his work off the field is done a little more quietly -- though no less effectively. Last December, less than a year after his surprise tour of Hospital General de la Plaza de Salud in Santo Domingo, Ortiz was back, presenting a $200,000 check from himself and the Boston Red Sox Foundation to pay for heart procedures for children. And that’s only the largest of a number of charitable endeavors with which Ortiz has been involved.

Hours after Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans, Ortiz wrote a check for $50,000 to support relief efforts, then strong-armed a number of prominent Dominican players to match it. At home in the Dominican, he holds fund-raising golf tournaments and softball games, and in Boston he has worked with a national youth volunteer program.

When he broke Jimmie Foxx’s franchise record for homers in a season in 2006, he auctioned off the ball and divided the money among several charities. And last fall he even auctioned off himself, agreeing to lunch and a game of Wiffle ball in exchange for a $30,000 donation to charity.

“I think we described Ortiz as a grizzly bear in the batter’s box and a teddy bear off the field,” Massarotti said of Ortiz, who has been nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award, baseball’s most prestigious public-service prize, each of the last two years.

“That’s really a pretty fair description of him. For a guy who’s accomplished as much as he has, he doesn’t have . . . a massive ego. He’s a very accommodating, friendly, warm guy. He’s unique in that way. Everybody likes David.”

In fact, many baseball people consider “Big Papi” -- who grew up in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Santo Domingo, one of two children born to a government secretary and an auto parts salesman whose marriage did not survive their only son’s childhood -- to be among the most popular and well-respected players in the game.

But he is also a feared figure in the batter’s box, especially at this time of year. His home run in Game 4 and his two runs batted in in Game 5 of the championship series with Cleveland gave him 10 homers and 30 RBIs in his last 28 postseason games. And he had three game-winning hits in the Red Sox’s run to the World Series title in 2004, beating the Yankees in consecutive games in the league championship series with extra-inning RBIs.

“In the playoffs . . . you don’t get that many opportunities to produce,” said Ortiz, who has clearly made the most of his. “[I’m] just trying to keep things simple. You don’t have to rush when you’re hitting and it’s because -- it’s not like in the regular season that sometimes you get bad pitches called for a strike and you don’t know what to do. Next thing you know you’re chasing pitches and things like that.

“The playoffs is a totally different game and in your mind you keep the approach that you have, then you’re going to have better results.”

Not that’s he a slouch in the regular season. With outfielders J.D. Drew and Coco Crisp struggling at the plate and left fielder Manny Ramirez sidelined for 25 games down the stretch because of a strained oblique, much of Boston’s offensive load fell on Ortiz’s broad shoulders. And he responded, batting .396 with nine homers and 27 RBIs in September despite a knee problem that required cortisone injections.

But then again Ortiz has been so good for so long, averaging nearly 42 homers and 128 RBIs during his five seasons with the Red Sox, his ability to carry the team even while injured seems expected more than appreciated in Boston.

“People are just kind of used to seeing you coming through every at-bat,” said Ortiz, whose efforts brought the Red Sox their first division title in 12 years. “And the same people that watch the game every day, they never sit down and analyze that this is not an easy game to play. This is not like a Nintendo game that you can sit down and hit a home run or hit a double or get a hit whenever.

“Everybody just thinks about, ‘Oh, Papi should hit a homer right here. Papi should do this. Papi should do that.’ Papi’s not the only player here.”

No, he’s not. But in a clubhouse populated by the sulking, the surly and cynical, the 31-year-old Ortiz has emerged as the face of the franchise -- and it’s usually a face creased by a warm, gap-toothed smile.

And that too has not gone unnoticed.

“People here in Boston, they kind of watch everything you do pretty close,” he said. “Lots of people come to me and they tell me . . . how much fun they have watching me on and off the field. And that kind of gets you thinking.

“You know, nobody’s perfect. We’re all human and we make mistakes. But at the same time when you know there’s a lot of people watching you, you want to make sure whatever you do is good for whoever is watching you and they can take it as an example.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com