updated 8:56 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2005

BOSTON - Terry Francona’s pregame news conference had dragged on for 18 minutes when the next speaker barged into the room.

“Dude, are you going to be talking all night?” David Ortiz said. “I’m waiting for you.”

With that, Boston’s manager laughed and got out of his chair Friday. The MVP contender sat down wearing a black headband, black T-shirt and his white baseball pants with red stripes down the sides.

Think he’s uptight just because the Red Sox were less than three hours away from starting a three-game series with the New York Yankees that could decide if one misses the playoffs? The Red Sox began the night trailing the Yankees by one game in the AL East and tied with Cleveland for the wild-card berth.

Ortiz’s easy manner contrasts with his serious focus at the plate, especially with the game on the line. In Thursday night’s 5-4 win over Toronto that kept Boston one game behind New York, he tied the game with a homer in the eighth and won it with an RBI single in the ninth.

That enhanced his MVP credentials in what is widely seen as a two-man race with Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

Both started in the Seattle organization, and Ortiz said they talked about those days at his house this season when Rodriguez was in town with the Yankees.

“At one point, he got called up to the big leagues” after Seattle’s regular shortstop, Felix Fermin, got hurt, Ortiz said. But when Fermin was ready to reclaim his position, “that was the first time ever I saw Alex saying that he was going to quit. He wasn’t going to play baseball anymore.

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“Alex has a great personality and I have a lot of respect for Alex.”

Rodriguez achieved stardom much earlier, but Ortiz emerged as one of baseball’s best hitters with 72 homers in his first two seasons in Boston after leaving Minnesota as a free agent. He entered Friday’s game tied with Rodriguez for the AL lead with 47 homers. He singled in his first at bat to increase his major league-leading RBI total to 147.

“Anybody who said they expected him to be this kind of an offensive guy is, I think, they’d be guessing,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “First of all, I felt he was going to be a good hitter. I never dreamed he was going to have the kind of power that he has now.”

Ortiz has a shot at Boston’s single-season record of 50 homers by Jimmie Foxx. Ted Williams exceeded Ortiz’s RBI total just once, when he had 159 in 1949.

The designated hitter produces when it counts, with 19 of his 47 homers tying the game or putting the Red Sox in front. He may be the biggest reason the Red Sox led the AL East for much of the season, and he’s not surprised the Yankees overcame injuries to key starting pitchers to bring the division race down to the final weekend in Fenway Park.

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“Anybody can go through tough times, but I knew that things are going to be this way at the end of the season. For some reason, I had this feeling,” Ortiz said. “They have a good team.”

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