BOSTON -- David Ortiz hit a remarkable home run the other night. The Red Sox’ designated hitter drove a fast ball from Toronto’s Brett Cecil into the centerfield seats and brought the 38,099 Fenway faithful to their happy feet.

Home runs are not unusual for the man affectionately known as Big Papi. Far from it. He gets paid a lot of money to hit them. After all, only two years ago, he set an all-time Boston single-season record with 52.

Home runs only became truly unusual for Ortiz this season. Actually, before his homerun the other night, they had not only become unusual and infrequent, they were non-existent.

It was Ortiz’ first homerun of the season, after 149 consecutive at-bats without one.

Not that non-round-trippers have been falling in for him, either. Ortiz’ batting average (.211) is not only (for him) startlingly anemic, it’s microscopic compared, for instance, to the slugger-like average of the Houston Astros’ Mike Hampton (.333).

Hampton is a pitcher.

In short, David Ortiz has been mired in a mammoth slump. This was to be the season he was back, fully healed from last year’s wrist injury, and ready once more to be among baseball’s most fearsome hitters. Instead, it’s the slump that’s proved fearsome. Fans and baseball writers alike wonder aloud if Ortiz is finished.

Perhaps he is. Or perhaps he will go on to hit 45 homeruns before the season’s over. Who knows?

One thing’s for sure -- it can’t be easy or fun to endure a job slump quite so publicly. Imagine people far and wide commenting on your professional performance. (Google Ortiz’ drought-breaking HR, and one of the first entries is from the Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald.)

Truth is, other pros have suffered public slumps, too. Consider author Truman Capote .

After his initial stunning career successes with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood,” he never had another literary hit. That’s 18 years. (Capote died in 1984.) I don’t know how many at-bats that would translate to, but if authors had averages, Capote’s would have taken a major dip, that’s for sure.

Slumps happen in politics, too. And sometimes never end.

Harold Stassen was Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. He was considered a rising star of the Republican party of the time. But that was as far as his star ever rose.

Stassen made subsequent runs for the U.S. Senate, the House, Governor of Pennsylvania, and Mayor of Philadelphia. More famously, he also unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination fully 10 times between 1944 and 1992. He never won elective office again.

Now that’s a slump.

In 1970, Norman Greenbaum had a huge hit with his song, “Spirit in the Sky,” which sold more than 2 million copies. Fans waited excitedly for his next hit. Those that are alive are still waiting.

Hell, right now the whole worldwide economy is described as being in a slump. Fortunately for him, but unfortunately for the rest of us, David Ortiz is more likely to get things going again before the economy does.

Though not yet.

As of this writing, Ortiz has not homered again since that dramatic drought-busting at-bat. But as any baseball observer will tell you, sometimes the hits suddenly come again in bunches. And sometimes they just slowly dry up.

No matter how many fans are still cheering you on.