The Red Sox Thursday, April 9, 2020

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Red Sox minor league affiliates are about to feel the financial pinch

Michael Silverman

The financial bleeding is about to begin for the three Red Sox minor league affiliates in .

Before the COVID-19 pandemic put the sports world on hold, Thursday was supposed to be Opening Day for the at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I., with the Portland Sea Dogs beginning their own 70-game home slate a week from Thursday at in Portland, .

The June 18 start date for the short-season Lowell Spinners is still on for now, but with the coronavirus outbreak yet to reach its peak in , nobody can guarantee that LeLacheur Park will get to host all 39 scheduled regular-season games.

For a business model in which even one rainout that’s not made up can affect a balance sheet, losing all of April’s home games, and likely May’s as well, means the potential elimination of roughly a third of expected revenues for the full-season leagues.

The full-time staff members on the three teams still have their jobs for now, but with no games to host, teams are redeploying personnel on a number of fronts dragged to the foreground by the pandemic.

“We continue to employ everyone as before, but we’re turning them into sort of footsoldiers in the war against the virus," said , principal owner and chairman of the PawSox, "and I think that’s what most companies are doing. Whether they’re shifting their product or shifting their services, that’s taking place.

“This is not the time to be selling tickets or promoting the kinds of stuff we’d normally engage in.”

The PawSox and Spinners have donated their stocks of rainy-day ponchos to area health-care personnel and first responders for use as personal protective equipment.

The PawSox have provided lunches to Pawtucket police and fire personnel, donated food to ’s Elisha Project, and partnered Thursday with Ocean State Job Lot to allow needy people to drive through the McCoy Stadium parking lot and pick up free food.

“We’re doing all the goodwill we can think of,” said Charles Steinberg, president of the PawSox.

Radio commercials aimed at potential ticket-buyers have been re-cut as messages to deliver health recommendations and thanks to front-line workers such as health-care and grocery-store workers.

The shift of focus and energy is as dramatic as the elimination of revenue is real.

“We will no longer be receiving the regular revenue that’s coming in from games, although our April schedule is fairly light,” said Lucchino. “I think the real effect will us pretty hard in May.”

The PawSox are set to become the WooSox next season, but the statewide construction ban has brought the work on their new Polar Park in Worcester to a halt.

“Unquestionably this is a serious blow to our construction schedule,” said Lucchino. “It certainly will slow construction down. We’re hoping there are some things we can do this month in terms of planning and coordination that might help us, depending on when we get back to active construction."

The Sea Dogs and Spinners are pushing community-minded, health-oriented messages on their social media platforms, including child-oriented lesson plans and trivia contests meant to relieve pressure on teachers and parents.

Before the shutdown, Spinners GM Shawn Smith said, the team’s sponsorship had been “very strong” before slowing down.

“We’ve been working with our sponsors very proudly to understand their cash-flow needs and to understand their business," said Smith. "Our partners are our friends, too. It’s important they understand we care about them and we understand their needs.”

Sea Dogs president Geoff Iacuessa said the team understands the pressure every local business is experiencing.

“There’s not a business we deal with that’s immune to it and hasn’t been impacted by it, so everybody’s been pretty understanding and pretty sympathetic, and the sympathy goes the other way, too, because everybody’s been impacted,” said Iacuessa.

Thanks to commitments from all three ownership groups, the 40 full-timers with the PawSox, 18 with the Sea Dogs, and 11 with the Spinners have been assured that their jobs are safe. The Sea Dogs and Spinners have vowed to guarantee those jobs through the end of the season in September, with the PawSox expressing hope that they can do the same.

The Sea Dogs took their commitment the furthest. They informed their approximately 215 part-time concessionaires and ushers Tuesday that they would be compensated for each game they miss.

The PawSox and Spinners have not yet come to a decision about how to address their game-day staffs, which number 100-150 for the former and 200 for the latter.

Dave Heller owns the Spinners and three other minor league teams in Delaware, Iowa, and Montana, with a total of 55 full-time employees.

“I’ve told them I’m committed to keeping everybody; even if we don’t play this year, I’m not going to fire anybody,” said Heller. “If I’ve got to get a loan, I’ll get a loan.

"I can’t bring myself to tell somebody that I’m firing them or furloughing them or laying them off or cutting their salary. I can’t do it. Not these people.”

The impact to the Sea Dogs’ full- and part-time staff will be negligible, thanks to owners Bill Burke and Sally McNamara, his sister.

“It’s certainly one less thing to worry about for everybody that’s involved, and that’s just a credit to Bill and Sally making a commitment to the people,” said Iacuessa.

“It’s unprecedented and challenging times, and we’re fortunate that our owners are so committed, and I wouldn’t begrudge anybody for the tough decisions they have to make.”

It’s a whammy for schedule makers

Michael Silverman

The work output, and lack of it, from a squad of applied mathematics undergraduates in Baltimore are all the proof you need of the heightened state of uncertainty that swirls around baseball’s minor leagues.

Members of the Johns Hopkins Minor League Scheduling Research Team are trying to create a new batch of pandemic-shortened 2020 schedules for eight A, Double A, Single A, and Rookie leagues. They’re working with a moving target of start dates that begin no earlier than July.

That’s in progress, but what’s stuck in neutral is work on a schedule for the 2021 season, a schedule that should have been in the hands of leagues and teams for review months ago.

Turmoil from the contentious negotiations between Minor League Baseball and over a new operating agreement that could reshuffle leagues, teams within leagues, and, significantly, reduce by 42 the number of total teams has rendered that 2021 exercise of complex algorithms and heavy- duty computer programming virtually useless until the conflict can be resolved.

The schedule shows these are strange times indeed.

“It’s been quite a 1-2 punch for Minor League Baseball," said Tony Dahbura, who oversees the scheduling team and is also executive director of the university’s Information Security Institute. “All sports are reeling, but I’d say minor league baseball stands out.”

The work on the 2020 schedules comes at the behest of MiLB, which has postponed games officially only through this month. Now, MiLB is seeking to obtain the fairest and longest schedule possible — as soon as it’s safe to return.

“In most cases, what we are doing is, the leagues are saying, ‘OK, what if we pick up on July 1? With the current schedule, what would it look like?’ ” said Dahbura. “We’re looking at how we can make use of off days and how we can make use of time at the end of the season, after Labor Day when we would normally have the first round of the postseason.

"The leagues almost universally are thinking of contracting the postseason and trying to get an extra week of regular season in, if there’s any baseball at all this year.”

The current thinking is that teams will need at least two weeks of a mini-. That seems to preclude a start before July.

“Most people are not thinking June,” said Dahbura. "Around the All-Star break, for full-season leagues, the middle of June is the halfway point. That would be nice, but no one’s thinking that.”

Dahbura and the students travel to the each December, when they make presentations to representatives of the leagues that use their schedules; currently, that’s the International (Triple A), Southern and Texas (Double A), Florida State and Carolina (High Single A), South Atlantic (Low Single A), and New York-Penn and Appalachian (Rookie Short Season), with hopes of working for the Pacific Coast, California, Eastern, and Midwest leagues soon. Teams in those leagues need to know home and away dates in order to plan for college baseball or non-baseball events.

But this past December in San Diego was different when it came to presenting drafts of a 2021 schedule because MLB and MiLB had already locked horns on the controversial 42-team contraction plan.

“There’s a widely known minor league directive to ’hold off,’ " said Dahbura, who is also a co-owner of the Single A Hagerstown (Md.) Suns, who are on the list of teams to be contracted. "We knew that we were going to be sort of against the wall.

“We’re currently planning an intensive summer program, with students working during the summer and at this point creating contingency schedules for 2021. As you can imagine, most of the leagues would have had 2021 schedules in the bag by now. Those teams need those schedules as early as possible to be able to sell dates, plan promotions, and all those good things.”

Dahbura has no insight into what MLB will do or wants to do when it comes to its current thinking on league realignment, contraction, or letting the current PBA expire at the end of the 2020 season.

All he knows is that his students have work to finish this spring and then more to finish this summer in order to deal with the double whammy of the pandemic and PBA talks.

“I would think that one scenario for each of the leagues would be to assume the status quo and generate at least one schedule based on that scenario,” said Dahbura. “And after that, I don’t have a directive from leagues of what they would like to do.

"We’re planning to begin work in early June and work through August for 2021.”

* MassLive.com

PawSox will host ‘Opening Day, Any Way’ on Thursday, featuring ‘MLB: The Show’ game against Red Sox, live broadcast at 5 p.m.

Chris Cotillo

The baseball season might be on hold due to the coronavirus, but the Pawtucket Red Sox are still planning on celebrating Opening Day.

The PawSox will host “Opening Day, Any Way" on Thursday at 5 p.m., giving fans a chance to enjoy a virtual replacement to the regularly scheduled Opening Day. Team announcers Josh Maurer, Jim Cain and Mike Antonellis will call a live game on “MLB The Show” between the PawSox and the Red Sox, with first pitch scheduled for 5 p.m.

To access the program, fans can go to PawSox.com or visit the team’s pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Before baseball was suspended due to the outbreak, the PawSox were scheduled to host the Syracuse Chiefs on Thursday afternoon to begin their final season at McCoy Stadium.

Instead, the club will begin celebrating their 50th season -- and the last year before moving to Worcester in 2021 -- virtually.

“While we continue our efforts to address the needs of the community as we wage this battle against this dangerous virus, we seek to also give fans the type of solace that baseball so often provides,” said PawSox president Dr. Charles Steinberg. “For the young, and particularly for the young-at-heart, we hope that this live version of an imaginary game brings smiles, connection, and a reminder of our faith in the resumption of our normal lives.

“Our National Pastime has always been there for us when we have needed it most, and we hope that this version of baseball brings a touch of joy into your homes.”

* RedSox.com

The 11th retired number in Red Sox history?

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- From 2015-17, an emotional jersey retirement ceremony turned into an annual event at .

First, it was the great Pedro Martinez having his No. 45 go to the right-field façade, just days after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The next year, five-time batting champion fought back tears. On that May night in 2016, No. 26 being retired was a symbol of how Boggs patched up his relationship with his first organization.

The grand finale in that sudden surge of retired Red Sox numbers occurred in ’17 -- when the Red Sox did something they had never done before. That was when ’s No. 34 was taken out of circulation just one season after he hung up his cleats.

So, who will be next?

Three seasons after Ortiz became the 10th Sox player to have his number retired, there is great intrigue in trying to figure out who the 11th will be.

There are no clear-cut answers. But before we get to the four most logical candidates below, here is some history as a backdrop.

Ted Williams (No. 9), (No. 8), (No. 27), (No. 1), (No. 14), (No. 4) and (No. 6) are the others hanging on that façade.

Under previous ownership, the Red Sox had a policy that a player had to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame and had to have ended his career in Boston to have the number retired. But the Sox worked their way around that loophole with Fisk, who signed a personal services contract with the club before his No. 27 joined the club's other legends.

The Hall of Fame has been a reasonable stepping stone for the most part, though there are two exceptions. The late Pesky isn’t in the Hall, and his number was retired as much for being a great ambassador//instructor as for what he did on the field. Ortiz, obviously, isn’t even eligible for the Hall of Fame yet, but the Sox view him as arguably their most impactful player in modern times.

The Sox no longer have a formal criteria to determine whether a player is eligible to have his number retired. That said, owner John Henry and chairman are committed to reserving that honor for a very select few. All future candidates will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Here are some cases that could compel a number to be retired at Fenway. We will list the candidates in alphabetical order.

Roger Clemens, No. 21

Résumé: The legend of the “Rocket” started in Boston on the night of April 29, 1986, when Clemens set a Major League record with 20 against the Mariners. He tied that record 10 years later in his final win for the club. In ’86, Clemens earned the AL MVP Award and remains one of just 11 to win an MVP and Award in the same season. It was also his first of three Cy Youngs that he won with Boston (and seven overall). He is tied with Cy Young for the franchise record in wins (192).

The skinny: In a way, No. 21 essentially is retired by the Red Sox. No player has worn it in Boston since Rocket fled the club as a free agent following the 1996 season. While Clemens and the Sox definitely didn’t have the best parting, the sides have patched things up over the years. In fact, Clemens went into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2014. Over the past few years, Clemens has been expressive about the soft spot he has in his heart for Boston and has attended several club alumni events.

So what is the holdup? It seems as if the Red Sox are waiting for Clemens to get elected to the Hall of Fame before formally retiring his number. Clemens has been on the ballot since 2013 and topped out at 61% in 2020. A candidate needs 75% of the votes to gain entry. The obvious reason Clemens isn’t there yet are suspicions he used performance-enhancing drugs. According to the Mitchell Report that was released in '07, the alleged PED use by Clemens was after he left the Red Sox.

Clemens has two more years of eligibility on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot. It will be interesting to see what the Red Sox do if he isn’t enshrined in Cooperstown by then.

Dwight Evans, No. 24

Résumé: The man known as Dewey played 19 years over three different decades for the Red Sox and stood out with his bat (379 homers, .842 OPS) and glove (franchise-record eight Gold Glove Awards). Evans only got to play in the twice (1975 and ’86), but he performed well both times with his team losing in seven games to powerhouses (Big Red Machine, Mets).

The skinny: Perhaps the reason the Red Sox haven’t retired No. 24 for this longtime fan favorite just yet is because it’s hard to reconcile the mediocre first half of his career offensively with his dominant second half. In the 3,394 at-bats Evans took from 1972-80, he slashed .262/.344/.448 with 485 runs, 128 homers and 443 RBIs. In 5,332 at-bats from ’81-90, Evans slashed .279/.385/.489 with 950 runs, 251 homers and 903 RBIs.

If Evans had been evaluated on the numbers that people put the most stock in these days, he would have been considered an elite player during the entire decade of the ‘80s. This is why he has gained more Hall of Fame momentum lately. He received 50% of the votes on the Modern Era ballot last December. With another four votes, he would have been elected. Evans had a short-lived on the BBWAA ballot, earning 10.4% of the votes or less from 1997-99.

The Red Sox waited for six years until Evans played his final game for the club before giving No. 24 to Kevin Mitchell in 1996. Shane Mack, Mike Stanley, , Takashi Saito and have worn it in the ensuing years. Given the long ties Evans has had with the Sox -- he still works for the club, is a frequent presence at Fenway and lives in the Boston area -- it wouldn’t be surprising if No. 24 is eventually retired.

Dustin Pedroia, No. 15

Résumé: The fiery Pedroia is a four-time Gold Glove Award winner, a four-time All-Star and was the 2008 AL MVP Award winner. His 51.6 Wins Above Replacement are eighth most among active players, even though he's hardly played since '17 due to injuries. Pedroia was a key contributor of World Series championship teams in '07 and ’13.

The skinny: It once seemed a no-brainer that Pedroia’s No. 15 would be affixed permanently to the façade of right field at Fenway, serving as a reminder that he is one of the best all-around players in club history. But injuries have derailed him significantly. Only once in the past five seasons has Pedroia played more than 105 games. At this point, it’s unclear if he will ever play again.

Having spent his entire career with the Red Sox, the case can be made that Pedroia’s track record is already enough for No. 15 to be retired someday. At the very least, it’s highly unlikely that equipment Tommy McLaughlin will give No. 15 to anyone for a long time.

It could be a while on No. 15, as the Red Sox might first see how it goes when Pedroia is on the Hall of Fame ballot. While injuries could well prevent Pedroia from ever getting to Cooperstown, the guess here is that No. 15 will be enshrined one of these years.

Luis Tiant, No. 23

Résumé: El Tiante was a warrior for the Red Sox from 1971-78, using his whirling and contorted delivery to produce 122 wins, 113 complete games and 26 shutouts.

The skinny: The Hall of Fame hasn’t come calling yet for Tiant. Therefore, the Red Sox haven’t retired No. 23 in his honor. However, the club -- and many other Tiant supporters -- are baffled by his exclusion from the Hall.

For his career, Tiant went 229-172 with a 3.30 ERA and 2,416 strikeouts in 3,486 1/3 innings. Compare that with the late (224-166, 3.26 ERA, 2,012 strikeouts in 3,449 1/3 innings) and it’s perplexing that one of those players is in the Hall of Fame and the other isn’t. They pitched in the same era. Hunter had many more chances to shine in the postseason with dominant teams like the Athletics and Yankees, but Tiant came up huge for the Red Sox in the 1975 playoffs.

There is a path that the 79-year-old Tiant could wind up getting his number retired other than getting to the Hall of Fame. Call it the Pesky way. Aside from Pesky, it’s hard to find an ambassador who has served the Red Sox so enthusiastically for so long. If you want a challenge, try to find a Red Sox fan who has never A) interacted with Tiant; B) gotten his autograph or C) had a picture taken with him. Many people would have the answer on that one of D) All of the above.

Watch Pedro's 17- game today at 1 ET

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- For all the great performances Pedro Martinez had -- and there are way too many to be able to count by hand -- the best one took place in enemy territory at .

The night was Sept. 10, 1999, and the Yankees were in the middle of a dynasty in which they’d win four World Series championships in five years and get to the Fall Classic an amazing five times in six years.

That thoroughly dominant start by Martinez, yet another memorable chapter in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, will be streamed live on MLB.com at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday.

When Martinez opened the first inning by hitting before serving up a solo homer to in the bottom of the second, it was hard to know that this night would be a defining one in his career.

Yet after the blast by Davis, Martinez didn’t allow a baserunner the rest of the night, setting down 22 in a row in a 3-1 victory for the Red Sox.

In all, it was a complete-game one-hit shutout with no walks and a career high of 17 strikeouts for the great No. 45, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.

This, against a loaded New York lineup that had , Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams, , Davis and pinch-hitter Darryl Strawberry.

You’d be surprised, however, how Martinez derived his motivation for this game. But he mentioned it in an interview with MLB.com last September.

Prior to the game, Red Sox pitching coach and Martinez had a disagreement, according to the righty.

“I went out there angry,” Martinez said. “And then I gave up this bomb in the second inning to Chili.”

So what did Kerrigan, who was Martinez’s pitching coach in Montreal and Boston, do to set him off?

“He told me to go to the [pregame scouting] meetings,” Martinez said. “I had faced the Yankees previously. I said, ‘Nothing has changed. It’s the same lineup.’ I just faced these guys [four months earlier].”

Kerrigan, who had a somewhat nagging temperament that Martinez never enjoyed, felt otherwise.

“Joe said, ‘Well you need to go to the meetings because the other pitchers need to hear what you have to say.’ I said, ‘No, I’m tired.’” Martinez said.

Martinez always felt that west to east travel took a lot of out him, and the Red Sox had come to New York after a road trip to and Oakland.

The team landed in New York in the wee hours of the morning on Sept. 10, and had an off-day in New York prior to Martinez’s start on Friday night.

But Martinez was still jet-lagged, and he had no patience for Kerrigan’s suggestions of how he should spend his pregame hours.

“I didn’t fly ahead, I flew in with the team. I was beat up,” Martinez said. “I said, ‘I need to get to the jacuzzi and get treatment because I’m about to pitch a game.’ He goes, ‘Well, you better figure it out what you’re going to do with Jeter, he’s hitting .300 off you.’ ... I cursed him, ‘I told him to take the bat and stick it’ you know where.’”

Jeter was one of the many Yankees who looked helpless against Martinez, going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Ricky Ledee had the toughest time, striking out in all three of his at-bats. Williams, Davis, Scott Brosius and each struck out twice. All nine Yankees starters K’d at least once, and Strawberry was punched out as a pinch-hitter as the second out of the ninth.

By the time Knoblauch faced Martinez with two outs in the ninth, most of the Yankee Stadium crowd was swept up in what they were watching, chanting, “Pedro, Pedro, Pedro.”

Martinez struck Knoblauch out swinging to cap the magical night.

Examining Varitek's impact on Red Sox history

Will Leitch

While we’re waiting for baseball to come back, we are making do. So once a week, inspired by the late Deadspin’s “Let’s Remember Some Guys” series, we will take a look at one player in baseball history, why he was great, why he mattered, why we should hang on to him. Send me your suggestions at [email protected].

Player: Career: BOS 1997-2011 Accolades: All-Star 2003, '05, '08

The thing about Jason Varitek is that while he is an undeniable, and indelible, part of baseball history, it is kind of hard to tell exactly how much he has to do with it. Was he standing idly by as history unfolded around him? Or was he the central figure in his own story, the reason all that history happened in the first place? Or is it somewhere in the middle? The fact that there is no clear answer is one of the reasons baseball is so wonderful and mysterious.

Here’s a great example: Varitek is the only person in the history of baseball -- and, quite likely, the only one who will ever do this -- who has appeared in all of the following:

• Little League World Series • College World Series • World Series • World Baseball Classic • Summer Olympics

See? Varitek was not the best player on any of those teams (OK, maybe the Little League one), but he was central to all of them; each was better because of him, and each was obviously good, because jeez, look where they were! Were those teams there because of Varitek? Or was he just the recipient of good fortune, a helpful part but otherwise just along for the ride?

Or how about the fact that Varitek is one of only two in baseball history (Carlos Ruiz is the other) to have caught four no-hitters? He obviously was a smart defensive ; Pedro Martinez has long credited Varitek for having a huge part in his brilliant 1999-2000 run. But you can’t really credit catchers for no-hitters … can you? Or at least you can’t credit them for catching four. Right? Can you?

When the Mariners traded Varitek and for Heathcliff Slocumb in 1997, the Mariners were one of the most exciting teams in baseball, and the Red Sox hadn’t won a playoff game in a decade or a World Series in nearly a century. But two years later, Varitek and the Red Sox were playing in the Championship Series against the Yankees. And five years after that, there was Varitek and the Red Sox doing the impossible: winning a World Series for Boston. Three years later, the Red Sox won another one. None of that happened until Varitek got there. Does that mean he’s responsible for all of it? No. Right? Probably not? But maybe?

After all: Of all those Red Sox heroes, including David Ortiz and , only one had the "C" stitched on his uniform for “Captain.” It was only Varitek. That doesn’t sound like someone standing idly by, does it?

Heck, you didn’t see any of them punching A-Rod, did you?

Alex Rodriguez and Varitek ended up teammates on a World Baseball Classic team after that, but, it turns out, they did not talk. Varitek still felt bad about it, saying, “My kids were watching that.”

But there was Varitek again, in the middle of an epic moment in the middle of an epic season that ended with a true epic of history. That can’t be a coincidence either.

It’s not like Varitek didn’t put up stats. He hit 193 homers over his 15 years, and he made the All-Star Game three times. He actually received MVP votes three times, from 2003-05, perhaps the best years of that Red Sox era. (Can you believe he stole 10 bases in 2004?) If he had played for, say, the his entire career, he might not have won two World Series, he might not have gotten a captain’s patch, he might not have caught four no-hitters, he might not be a franchise icon. But he still would have been a terrific catcher. He still would have had a heckuva career.

But being with Boston, during that era, leading those teams … that elevated him to an entirely different level than just being a regular catcher for a regular team would have. He would have been Jason Varitek for the Padres. But for Boston? He’s Tek. He’s the Captain. He’s their guy.

So that’s the question with a guy like Varitek. How much of it is him? And how much of it is his circumstances?

Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter. We are all a product of our environment. And we are all our own person. Jason Varitek was put in situations where he had the opportunity to thrive. But not everyone who is put in those situations constantly thrives. Hardly anyone does, actually. But Jason Varitek did. Every time. Jason Varitek wouldn’t be Jason Varitek if he hadn’t played for some monumentally talented teams. But the Boston Red Sox wouldn’t have been who they were those years if they hadn’t had Jason Varitek. Circumstances combined with opportunity combined with achievement -- that’s precisely what makes history happen. That’s what we remember.

* NBC Sports Boston

Who are the best catchers in Red Sox history? Ranking the Top 5

John Tomase

For a position so essential to baseball — no player handles the ball more often — the catching ranks in Red Sox history are surprisingly shallow.

Multiple seasons belong to players like Johnny Peacock, Pinch Thomas, Hick Cady, Roxy Walters, and , names that sound like they should belong to bouncers before big leaguers.

The dearth of catching talent may partly explain why the Red Sox routinely featured lousy starting rotations, at least until , Pedro Martinez, and Co. arrived to give the club perennial Cy Young contenders no matter who squatted behind the plate.

Had this list extended to 10 instead of five, some of the names would surprise you. , anyone? How about ? There'd definitely be room for .

Anyway, the overall talent level may be thin, but the top five are legit, with three All-Stars and two Hall of Famers.

5. (1947-1950) Born in Vermont, raised in New Hampshire, and educated at Providence College, where he earned a degree in philosophy, Tebbetts (pictured, right) made All-Star teams in 1948 and 1949 after arriving from the Tigers for declining backstop Hal Wagner. The trade turned out to be a steal, with Tebbetts holding down the position for parts of four seasons and earning MVP votes twice.

The Red Sox averaged 95 wins from 1948-50 with Tebbetts behind the plate, but missed the postseason each year, twice by just a game, including a heartbreaker in 1948 when the Tigers beat Denny Galehouse in a one-game playoff to break a tie atop the American League and advance to the World Series vs. the crosstown Braves. Tebbetts hit .287 over 419 games in Boston before embarking on an 11-year career as a manager with the Reds, Braves, and Indians.

4. (1980-1990) Keeping things local, we turn to the pride of Worcester, who realized a childhood dream when he became the starting catcher in 1981 at age 21, placing second to Yankees left-hander in of the Year race. Geddy became a fan favorite and helped ease the loss of New Hampshire native Carlton Fisk over a contract snafu just months earlier. He smacked 24 homers in 1984 and made his first All-Star team in 1985 with a sneaky great season, hitting .295 with 18 homers and an .846 OPS.

He was an All-Star again in 1986, though his production started to wane under the tutelage of hitting coach Walt Hriniak, whose controversial approach left Gedman helicoptering one-handed swings that dropped him into a slump for basically the rest of his career. Still, his arrival with ace Roger Clemens briefly left Red Sox fans dreaming of a decades-long All-Star .

3. (1933-1937) The 1930s may have been the glory years for catchers across baseball, with , , , , Al Lopez, and Ferrell piling up All-Star berths. All of them reached the Hall of Fame (Lopez as a manager), and Ferrell started his journey to Cooperstown in earnest once he arrived from St. Louis in 1933. He hit .302 with a .394 on base percentage over parts of five seasons with the Red Sox, making four All-Star Games and teaming with his brother Wes, a right-hander and 25-game winner in 1935, to form the best brother battery in history.

An outstanding pitch framer, Ferrell's strong receiving skills earned him a second act with the Senators after he and Wes were surprisingly traded in 1938 to Washington, where Ferrell was able to corral the of Dutch Leonard, who recorded his only 20-win season on Ferrell's watch in 1939.

2. Jason Varitek (1997-2011) Former GM earned his spot in the Red Sox Hall of Fame with one of the great swindles ever when he acquired both Varitek and sinkerballer Derek Lowe from the Mariners in 1997 for washed-up closer Heathcliff Slocumb. All Varitek did over 15 seasons was become the heart and soul of the Red Sox, first as a defense-oriented catcher who prided himself on getting the most out of pitching staffs fronted by the incomparable Pedro Martinez, and then as a standout offensive star and captain who made three All- Star teams and earned one Silver Slugger Award.

He delivered two iconic moments along the way, first by stuffing his glove in the face of to prove the Red Sox wouldn't be pushed around during the 2004 season, and then by leaping into the arms of closer Keith Foulke three months later when the Red Sox ended their 86-year World Series drought.

1. Carlton Fisk (1969-1980) Had just mailed Fisk his contract renewal on time in 1980, the New Hampshire native might've spent his entire career here. He instead settled for 11 seasons filled with honors like a Rookie of the Year and Gold Glove in 1972, as well as seven All-Star berths. They called the rugged 6-foot-3, 200- pounder "Pudge," and he took no prisoners. Fisk was a tenacious competitor who never backed down from a fight, particularly when it came to the Yankees.

His rivalry with New York counterpart was legendary, highlighted by a 1973 brawl, and Fisk found himself throwing punches again after a collision with in Yankee Stadium three years later. He also delivered one of the most famous home runs in World Series annals, willing his shot fair off the foul pole to win of the 1975 Fall Classic vs. the Reds. He changed Sox in 1981, spending 13 years in and cementing his Hall of Fame credentials before retiring at age 45 as an 11- time All-Star.

* The Athletic

The all-time Red Sox one-hit-wonder squad

Jen McCaffrey

In the 1989 MLB Draft, the Red Sox selected a pair of first-rounders, both natives of Norwalk, Conn., who were teammates at Seton Hall University: and .

Vaughn, of course, would go on to become a feared slugger, winning American League MVP honors in 1995 and earning All-Star status three times over his 12-year career.

Morton flashed onto the scene with equal fanfare that same season. Vaughn debuted on June 27, 1991, and eight days later Morton, a lefty starter, came up for his first appearance at Fenway.

And what a debut it was.

He was Billy Rohr-esque. Morton dazzled Red Sox fans with a complete-game, 10-1 win over the Tigers. The only blemish was a blasted over the left-field wall.

Red Sox fans had been hoping and waiting for Morton, their prized prospect, to deliver. Once he did, expectations grew.

Carve out a spot next to Roger Clemens for Morton in the rotation, right?

That’s what the Red Sox did. But unlike Vaughn, Morton couldn’t deliver in the long haul.

He made 14 more starts that season. None was as good as his debut. He finished 6-5 with a 4.59 ERA and a 1.54 WHIP in 86 1/3 innings.

The Red Sox finished 84-78 and seven games out of first, and when the season was over Morton would never return to the majors again.

Like Rohr — who shut out the Yankees in his debut in 1967 but wound up with just three career wins — Morton became the ultimate one-hit wonder. He could never match the success of his debut, and he was gone after just one season with the Red Sox.

Morton’s stint in Boston got us thinking. It’s one-hit-wonder week here at The Athletic, so we set out to come up with a full Red Sox squad of flashes in the pan. The ground rules: You’re eligible for this team only if your stint with the Red Sox was limited to one season.

First base: , 1989 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 154 .277 .855 26 30 133

Esasky played eight seasons from 1983 to 1990, mostly with Cincinnati. He arrived in Boston in a trade alongside for and .

Esasky had the best season of his career while with the Red Sox, finishing 18th in the AL MVP voting and tallying career bests in nearly every offensive category, including hits (156), doubles (26) and homers (30).

But Esasky signed with the Braves once he became a free agent after his lone season in Boston.

Second base: , 2003 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 144 .283 .760 38 13 95

Walker arrived in Boston in a December 2002 trade with Cincinnati for utilityman Tony Blanco and minor leaguer Josh Thigpen.

He put together a strong campaign for the Red Sox, but it was in the postseason where he really excelled. He played all 12 games of the American League Division Series and Championship Series that October, posting a .349 average and 1.159 OPS with a double, a triple and five homers while driving six runs.

He signed as a free agent with the Cubs that winter and played four more seasons.

Third base: Adrian Beltre, 2010 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 154 .321 .919 49 28 141

Beltre is a slam dunk for the best single season in Boston by a third baseman. His 7.8 WAR was the highest for a Red Sox third baseman since Wade Boggs’ 8.4 in 1989. No Red Sox third baseman has come close to that since, with ’ 4.9 WAR last season the closest.

In 2010, Beltre was an All-Star and won the Silver Slugger and finished ninth in MVP voting. His 49 doubles were the most in the American League. He led the team in average and OPS and trailed only David Ortiz in homers.

Beltre had joined the Red Sox as a free agent on a one-year deal. The next winter, he signed a six-year, $96 million deal with the Rangers.

Shortstop: Orlando Cabrera, 2004 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 58 .294 .785 19 6 97

Cabrera arrived in Boston from Montreal at the 2004 trade deadline in an epic four-team deal that sent to the Cubs and also brought Doug Mientkiewicz from the Twins to the Red Sox.

Though he played just 58 games in Boston, Cabrera’s impact following the unceremonious departure of Garciaparra was significant.

Cabrera’s 97 OPS+ was the second-highest he posted in his 15-year career and he drove in 31 runs over those final 58 games of the regular season. In the postseason, he hit .288 with a .733 OPS with four doubles, driving in 11 runs appearing in all 14 games.

Not many in Red Sox history have played just one season. Edgar Renteria and Stephen Drew are among the few. But none made an impact like Cabrera did on that curse-busting squad.

Right field: Bunk Congalton, 1907 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 124 .286 .671 11 2 115

Born in 1875, Congalton played in nine games for the Cleveland Naps (who became the Indians in 1915) to start the 1907 season before arriving in Boston, which was in the final year of being called the Americans before switching to Red Sox in 1908.

Congalton, who hit from the left side, was by far the best hitter on the 1907 team, with a .286 average and .671 OPS in the Deadball Era. He led the team with 142 hits in 124 games and struck out only 18 times in 532 plate appearances. Cy Young posted a 1.99 ERA that season in 43 games, including 37 starts and 33 complete games, but the club finished seventh in the American League with a 59-90 record.

Congalton played in only four seasons in the majors and never appeared again after his lone year in Boston.

Left field: , 1905 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 148 .257 .682 12 4 116.0

Like Congalton, Burkett, also a lefty hitter, played the final year of his career in Boston. His career, however, spanned 16 years from 1890 to 1905. Burkett played in 2,067 games and was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Old Timers Committee in 1947 before passing away in 1953.

In his lone season in Boston, the 36-year-old Burkett led the Americans, who played at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, with 147 hits and 78 runs over 148 games.

Center field: , 1953 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 137 .283 .707 27 3 87

Umphlett had a strong break-in to the majors in Boston, finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting to Detroit’s . Umphlett played a limited number of games that year alongside because Williams had been deployed for the Korean War.

That winter, however, the Red Sox traded Umphlett and Mickey McDermott to the Washington Senators for . Umphlett played just two more seasons, neither of which was as good as that year in Boston.

Designated hitter: , 1973 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 142 .289 .793 25 20 117

Cepeda played the penultimate season of his 17-year Hall of Fame career in Boston. Though he’d spent most of his career at first base and in left field, 1973 was the first year the American League instituted the , and Cepeda took over the role seamlessly.

He finished 15th in the MVP voting that year and was second on the team to Carl Yastrzemski with 86 RBIs.

Catcher: Ossee Schrecongost, 1901 G AVG OPS 2B HR OPS+ 86 .304 .742 13 0 107

Schrecongost was a journeyman who played for at least seven teams over a career that spanned well over a decade. He was on the very first team in Red Sox franchise history.

The 1901 Americans had plenty of offense, with five players in the starting lineup hitting over .300, including Schrecongost. But the Society for American Baseball Research wrote that Schrecongost may not have been the favored backstop for Cy Young, who at that point was the best pitcher in the game. So it's probably not a surprise that Schrecongost was traded to Cleveland in the offseason.

Starting pitcher: Hideo Nomo, 2001 GS IP W-L CG ERA K/9 33 198 13-10 2 4.50 10.0

Nomo’s one year in Boston was unspectacular but solid nonetheless. The right-hander’s big moment that year was, of course, his no-hitter in his first start for the club on April 4 in Baltimore. Nomo walked three and struck out 11 on 110 pitches, 69 strikes. It was the first no-hitter for a Red Sox pitcher since Dave Morehead in 1965.

Nomo posted a one-hit, complete-game gem the following month at home against the Blue Jays, but he was average the rest of the season. He led the league with 220 strikeouts and a 10.0 K/9, but also paced the league with 96 walks. After the season, he returned to the Dodgers via free agency and pitched another five seasons.

Relief pitcher: Rick Aguilera, 1995 GS SV-OPP ERA WHIP K/9 30 20-21 2.67 1.08 6.8

The Red Sox traded pitcher Frankie Rodriguez and minor leaguer JJ Johnson to the Twins for Aguilera in July 1995 to shore up a leaky on their first-place team. The trade went down while the Red Sox were in Minneapolis, and Aguilera secured his first against his former teammates but was reportedly vocal about his displeasure in being traded shortly before acquiring 10-5 trade rights with the Twins.

Nevertheless, Aguilera went on to record 20 saves in 21 opportunities down the stretch for the Red Sox. The bullpen ERA dropped from 5.46 in the first half to 3.28 in the second half. But in the postseason, Aguilera blew a save on his first chance in Game 1 of the ALDS against Cleveland and the Red Sox lost the series.

My Favorite Player:

Steve Buckley

I talked with Joe O’Malley on the phone one night years ago, briefly, but I never met the man. I wanted to meet him, hoping to sweet-talk him into fleshing out his story a little, but he was a quiet, humble Boston cop who didn’t give a lick about blabbing to sportswriters and no way in hell was he going to let us take his picture and plaster it all over the paper.

Joe O’Malley came to mind the other day when I was asked to write about my favorite baseball player growing up. And my favorite baseball player growing up was Tony Conigliaro, the star-crossed Red Sox whose plaque would be on display at the Hall of Fame this very day were it not for what happened on the night of Aug. 18, 1967, at Fenway Park. “Conig” had already established himself as the ultimate local kid done good, born in Boston, raised in Revere, just 19 years old when he debuted with the Sox in 1964. He socked a home run in his first Fenway at-bat. In 1965, he led the American League in homers. The year after that he became the youngest player in AL history to amass 100 career home runs. He had it all — looks, talent, swagger — and there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t continue for years.

And then came Aug. 18, 1967, Red Sox vs. California Angels, Fenway Park, bottom of the fourth inning.

Conigliaro, all of 22 and already a star, stepped up to the plate to face , a journeyman right- hander whom the Angels had acquired from the Mets a month earlier.

A couple hundred feet down the right-field line, in the alley near where the tarpaulin is kept, stood Joe O’Malley. He was 27, having completed his work at the Boston Police Academy and in his rookie year as a cop. On this night he was doing a detail at Fenway Park.

Hamilton’s first pitch was a fastball up and in, causing Conigliaro to throw his head back. , Boston’s on-deck hitter, later recalled that the ball seemed to follow Conigliaro before it crashed into his face, “making the sound you’d hear if you smashed a piece of fruit,” said Rico.

Conigliaro fell to the ground, holding his hands to his face as he rolled over. , the plate , stepped up from his crouch and put his arms in the air. Petrocelli was first on the scene, followed by trainer Buddy LeRoux.

A stunned silence fell over Fenway. As Conigliaro was being attended to, O’Malley and another rookie cop, Eddie O’Neill, stepped out of the alley and onto the field, as per protocol.

Finally, after several anxious minutes, Conigliaro was wheeled off the field and taken by ambulance to Sancta Maria Hospital in Cambridge. His cheekbone fractured, the retina in his left eye severely damaged, Conigliaro missed the remainder of the Sox’ pennant-winning season and all of 1968. He made a triumphant return in 1969 and hit 20 home runs, and he hit 36 more in 1970, but toward the end of that season Conigliaro was having trouble picking up the ball. He was using his right eye to compensate for what the left eye could no longer do, and this didn’t bode well for the future. Selling high, the Red Sox traded Conigliaro after the season — to the Angels.

Hamilton was long gone by then. Nonetheless, Conigliaro’s time with the Angels was brief and sad. He played in just 74 games, hitting .222. He eventually retired, though he made a second comeback with the Red Sox in 1975, earning a spot on the team’s Opening Day roster. But the same struggles persisted, and soon Conigliaro’s playing career was over, and for good.

In 1982, while being driven to Logan Airport by his brother Billy after auditioning for a broadcasting job with the Red Sox, Conigliaro suffered a heart attack, causing severe brain damage. He would linger for eight years, needing constant care, before he finally died on Feb. 24, 1990. He was 45.

It can be said that a little of Tony Conigliaro died on that August night at Fenway Park. But nobody knew that at the time, just as nobody knew that the slugger’s season was over, or that he’d miss all of 1968.

All anybody knew was that Conigliaro was on his way to Sancta Maria and there was a game to be resumed.

And so Petrocelli walked to the plate to face Hamilton

And, a few hundred feet down the right-field foul line, rookie cops Joe O’Malley and Eddie O’Neill stepped back inside the alley.

With pinch-runner Jose Tartabull taking Conigliaro’s place at first-base, Petrocelli swung at the first pitch, launching a foul ball that made its way into the alley where, according to O’Neill, “ it went off that back wall and Joe one-handed it on the bounce.”

O’Malley, believing it to be the baseball that had hit Conigliaro, put the ball in his pocket. When he got home that night, he put it away in a bureau drawer and it remained there for 35 years.

Until he gave it to me.

But before we get to the part where O’Malley’s buddy Jay Connolly pulled up in front of my house one night in a Boston police cruiser, rang the bell and when I opened the door handed me a Ziploc-brand food storage bag containing a big-league baseball with American League president Joe Cronin’s signature on it, some background on Joe O’Malley is in order.

To say he was a decorated Boston cop is an understatement. In 1993, O’Malley and fellow officer Patrick Russell were presented with one of the highest honors a Boston police officer can receive, the Schroeder Brothers Memorial Medal. Earlier that year, at the Area A-1 station in Government Center, a prisoner lunged at police officer Thomas Rose and got his hands on Rose’s gun. Rose, a veteran cop, father of three, was shot. He would later die during surgery at Mass. General Hospital. O’Malley and Russell struggled with the prisoner, with O’Malley getting control of the gun, preventing Russell from being shot.

O’Malley later received the George L. Hanna Award “for heroic acts of bravery and outstanding conduct,” from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He also earned the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association’s Brotherhood Award.

It wasn’t until 2002 that Joe O’Malley entered my life. I had written a couple of columns for my old newspaper, the Boston Herald, on why I believed, and still believe, the Red Sox should retire Tony Conigliaro’s No. 25 — not just because of the fine seasons he had already submitted but in consideration of what he may have accomplished had his career not been cruelly derailed.

A few weeks after one of those columns appeared, I received a jolting call from a member of Tony Conigliaro’s family: Tony’s daughter, Jessica Wheaton, wanted to meet me.

Up to this point nobody outside the family was aware Conigliaro had ever fathered a child. But as I would learn when I met Jessica, she held no hostility toward Conigliaro over the brief relationship between the ballplayer and her mother that took place a few months after the 1970 season. She spoke eloquently and from the heart, how her mother decided to raise the baby on her own, and how the mother’s parents, Jessica’s grandparents, eventually got on board and played a major role in Jessica’s life.

Jessica told me about the only time she looked upon Tony Conigliaro: She knocked on the door of the funeral home hours before the wake and very nicely said she’d like to pay her respects to her father.

As part of my research for the story I was doing on Jessica, I contacted Beverly Bruno Collins of the Bruno Funeral Chapel. “I opened the door and saw this pretty young woman with big, brown meatball eyes,” she told me. “She looked so much like her father that she didn’t even have to say a word. I just knew.”

When Joe O’Malley read the piece on Jessica I wrote for the Herald, he thought of the baseball that had been buried inside his bureau for so many years. Not once had he ever thought about selling it, and, though he did consider reaching out to the Conigliaro family, he always held back. This tragic reminder of that August night in 1967 was probably not something they’d want to see, he decided.

The story about Jessica Wheaton changed things. The fact that the Red Sox had never retired Conigliaro’s number changed things.

I was contacted not by O’Malley, but by another Boston cop, Jay Connolly. He explained to me that Joe had decided the baseball should no longer remain in the bureau drawer, and he was wondering what Jessica Wheaton’s thoughts were on the matter. After thinking it over, she felt it belonged in a museum — and that’s how a plan was hatched to offer it to the Sports Museum of New England. Joe and I eventually talked on the phone, but it was made clear he didn’t want to meet. We communicated for weeks, usually through Jay Connolly, but things didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I began to think Joe had lost interest, or had made other plans for the disposition of the baseball.

And then, on a late summer night in 2002, a Sunday night, the weather unseasonably muggy, Jay Connolly called. He asked if I was home. Yes. He asked for my address. He explained that he was on the Southeast Expressway near the gas tanks and that he’d be coming by.

Less than 20 minutes later a Boston police cruiser pulled up in front of my house. Jay rang the bell. When I answered, he handed me the baseball.

We talked for a while, mostly about Joe O’Malley, how he’s such a quiet guy, sticks to his family, doesn’t like publicity. I was fine with all that, I said. Jay left. I sat here with the baseball, turning it over in my hand, inspecting the Joe Cronin signature … and wondering: Is this really the baseball that crashed into Tony Conigliaro’s face on that August night in 1967?

I was very lucky in this respect: The person best equipped to answer that question — the plate umpire, Bill Valentine — was still living.

“There would have been no reason to throw it out,” he told me. “You have to understand that this was a different era. It’s not like today, where they change on just about every pitch.”

Valentine noted that in those days, “We were under orders from , who was the supervisor of umpires, not to be changing baseballs. That night, the ball hit (Conigliaro) in the eye and fell to the ground. I didn’t throw it out. I’d swear to it. I would have remembered that. Guys got hit all the time and we just threw the ball back to the pitcher.”

I also contacted the first-base umpire from that game, Bill Kinnamon, 83 at the time.

“I remember very vividly that memo from Cal Hubbard,” he told me. “It was a directive to keep baseballs in use. We didn’t throw baseballs out of the game.”

(Valentine, who later became the longtime general manager of the minor-league Arkansas Travelers, died in 2015. Kinnamon died in 2011. The other umpires who worked the game, Larry Knapp and Frank Umont, had passed away prior to 2002.)

I had determined that the baseball was almost certainly the one that Jack Hamilton held in his hand that night as Tony Conigliaro was digging in. It was not a happy realization for me. I again held it my hands, pondering the alternate historical timeline it had denied us. Tony C. might have hit 700 home runs had he remained healthy, and if he hit 700 he might have kept plugging away and chased after the home run record — 755 — that Henry Aaron would later set.

I’ve heard people say that was never going to happen. Given the way Conigliaro crowded the plate, they say, he was an accident waiting to happen. Bullshit, I say. Lots of players crowd the plate. crowded his way all the way to Cooperstown.

There was a nice little ceremony held when the baseball went on display at the Sports Museum, located inside TD Garden. But despite several invites, Joe O’Malley skated his lane by not showing up. He designated his grandson, Joseph Mackintire, nine years old at the time, to be his emissary.

As I learned on Tuesday, Joe O’Malley died in 2017. He was 77. A magnificent procession of uniformed police officers turned out at his funeral, everything very official and dignified, after which his remains were transported in the “Blue Goose,” a 1950s-era Boston Police wagon, to Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester.

“The tribute at his funeral was sad but impressive,” his daughter, Mary Mackintire, told me Tuesday night. “He would have been steaming about it. He never wanted notoriety. He never wanted the limelight. He never wanted his 15 minutes of fame.

“You couldn’t even buy him lunch. He always insisted on buying you lunch. He’d go to a Red Sox game and buy the cheapest ticket he could find, saying he didn’t want to sit in those $75 seats. But he’d want you to sit there.”

Yet there were occasions when Joe O’Malley would positively beam. He’d beam over the successes of his family, his friends, his co-workers, and, Lordy, did he ever enjoy the simplicity of hanging out with buddies.

And, yes, surprisingly, happily, Joe O’Malley beamed that time when he want to a Saturday afternoon Bruins game at the Garden and viewed the glass case containing the baseball he’d held onto for 35 years.

“I think he loved seeing it there because people had told him, oh, you know you can get all this money for it on eBay,” said Mary Mackintire. “Hearing that, he knew he wanted it to be somewhere where people could see it, and then tell baseball stories. He could see that it made his friends happy, and that’s what made him happy.”

My favorite player: Tony Conigliaro

Ed Bouchette

The waitress in the pizza shop just outside Boston in Revere, Mass., could not contain her secret any longer.

“I don’t normally do this,” she said, looking at my brother and me in the booth. “But you boys have been talking about him since you came in here.

“That over there,” she said, motioning her head toward a young man across the way in another booth, “is Tony Conigliaro.”

Our heads snapped so sharply she could probably hear the joints crack. The place was not crowded, but indeed there was Tony C, lounging in a pizza shop booth, his legs up, sneakers, no socks, with a young woman sitting across the table from him.

I say this with all due respect as a former altar boy: It was as if Jesus himself appeared 20 feet from me in this low-key pizza shop. We had just seen him sock a home run into the net above the at Fenway Park for the Red Sox that July 10, 1966. And as our waitress noted, my younger brother, Rick, and I could not stop talking about him as we awaited our pizza. Tony C’s baseball career would end tragically, as would his life later on, but on this day he was the toast of New England and we had him all to ourselves, sort of, in this small out-of-the-way pizza joint.

I was born in Lynn, Mass., and although we moved to for my dad’s job when I was 7, we spent a week or two every summer back “home,” visiting aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and old friends. We also visited Fenway Park for one game, me, my dad, my brother and an older cousin. We always had seats behind the Red Sox dugout during an era when the ballclub was terrible and tickets were readily available. I saw Carl Yastrzemski as a rookie my first trip there, just missing Ted Williams by a year. And now I had seen Tony Conigliaro help the Red Sox sweep a doubleheader from the . He had gone 4 for 6 with four RBI and four runs scored in those two games, with that homah ovah the Monstah.

There was no bigger god at that time if you grew up near Boston or hailed from that area than Tony C. Born in Revere, his family moved to Swampscott on the North Shore on the border with my hometown. He graduated from St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, where my mother also received her degree, my cousins attended and I would have gone had we not moved to Pennsylvania.

Yastrzemski was the Red Sox’ best player, but Conigliaro was their most idolized. He was young, darkly handsome, single, a Boston native who broke in with the Red Sox for good at the tender age of 19 in 1964. He also was a right-handed home run hitter with that short left field wall at Fenway. He played one season in the New York-Penn League before his callup to the majors.

Conigliaro hit a home run in his first at-bat in Fenway, the first of 24 home runs as a rookie with a .290 batting average even though he played in just 111 games because of a broken arm and toes. He led the American League with 32 homers in his second season in 1965, at 20 the youngest home run champ in AL history. He followed with 28 more in 1966, one of which we watched with glee from our seats that July behind the Sox dugout.

Now, he sat unobtrusively like a college kid in that pizza booth after he starred in Boston’s twin-bill sweep of the other Sox. My dad turned to me.

“Go get the Red Sox Yearbook in our car,” he said.

I grabbed the keys and dashed outside to my dad’s car parked in front along the curb, picked up the 1966 Yearbook he had just bought for us and a pen and ran back into the restaurant.

“Now,” my dad said, “go ask him for his autograph.”

I looked over at Tony C lounging in that booth with that blonde woman and looked back at my dad. I froze.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

My younger brother hopped out of his seat and said, “I’ll do it!” He snatched the pen and the yearbook out of my hands and without hesitation bounced over to the booth where Tony C relaxed after a long day at Fenway. I watched the scene as if it were in slow motion. My brother approached Conigliaro, asked him for his autograph and the young ballplayer agreed. He began to sign next to his picture in the Red Sox Yearbook when he stopped because the pen we had did not work.

The lady with him, dug into her purse and produced another pen. Tony used it to sign his autograph, my brother thanked him and walked back to our booth.

“Here,’’ my brother Rick said to me, giving me the Tony Conigliaro autographed Yearbook.

It has been among my prized possessions. My house burned to the ground in 2002 and I lost most of my sports and family memorabilia such as photos and videos, the ’79 World Series press pins, gold stars that gave me, a team photo of all of us who attended Joe Paterno’s football camp in 1966, among so much more. But some were saved because they were stored elsewhere, including the 1966 Red Sox Yearbook with Tony Conigliaro’s signature.

I still have it, his scratching with the bad pen to start out and his exquisitely signed autograph, unlike many athletes’ signatures today that are so unrecognizable.

It reads: “To Rick, Best of Luck, Tony Conigliaro.”

When I first read that in the pizza shop, my heart sank. Had I enough gumption to ask Tony C, it would have read, “To Ed.” Through the years, however, I appreciated this outcome more. It was a better story, and it connected my brother and me to it. Rick never asked me if he could have that Yearbook with Tony C’s note to him in it. He didn’t care about such things, not like I did anyway, and I know he felt better me having it.

Naturally, Tony C became an even larger focal point of my young sports hero worship. In 1967, he became the youngest in American League history to reach 100 career home runs at age 22. It was a magical year for the Red Sox, 1967. They finished ninth in the 10-team American League in 1966 to end two decades of mostly frustration since their last pennant in 1946. But ’67 was The Impossible Dream season in which they won 92 games and the AL pennant.

But it was a bittersweet season and not just because the Sox lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series. They lost Tony Conigliaro to a fastball from Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton on the night of Aug. 18 in Fenway Park. The ball crushed the left part of Tony C’s face, above the cheek bone and damaged the retina in his left eye.

It appeared his career was over. He did make a remarkable comeback in 1969 and 1970 when he hit 20 home runs and drove in 82 in 141 games, then socked 36 and drove in 116 a year later. But further success eluded him. The Red Sox traded him to, of all teams, the California Angels. He returned briefly in 1975 as a Boston DH but his damaged eyesight could not sustain his career, and he retired with 166 career home runs.

He turned to sports broadcasting and did some TV work in . Two days after Tony C’s 37th birthday, his brother Billy, himself a former Red Sox , was driving him to Logan Airport in Boston to catch a flight for another broadcast job interview when he suffered a heart attack, and then a stroke, as they drove in heavy traffic.

Tony Conigliaro went into a coma and never really recovered. He was admitted to a rehabilitation hospital in Salem, Mass., where he died in 1990 at the age of 45.

By then, I was grown, had a family, and now covered many athletes who were other kids’ heroes. But deep down it hurt, kind of still does. There was only one thing left to say:

“To Tony, Best of Luck, Ed Bouchette.”