It News: Pesky was the Heart of Red Sox Nation: A Fan’s Take

August 14, 2012

Pesky was the Heart of Red Sox Nation: A Fan’s Take

By Rick Blaine | Yahoo! Contributor Network
2012/8/14

I first met Johnny Pesky when I was five years old, and he was traveling through New England in the winter with a couple of players to promote the upcoming Boston Red Sox season. Back in those days, teams used these winter caravans to generate excitement among the fans and to sell tickets. This was before the Red Sox captured fans' hearts with the 1967 Impossible Dream team; before the World Series drought ended; before every game at Fenway Park was automatically sold out.
My father took me to the local Elks club that day to meet Pesky, whom he had watched play for the Red Sox in his own youth, when Pesky was a teammate of the great Ted Williams and Boston was battling the New York Yankees for the pennant each season.
Years later, at a spring training game in Florida, I introduced my own son to Pesky. As he had been
with me decades earlier, he was warm and gracious and solicitously attentive to a boy in the early stages of a love affair with a team that would last a lifetime.
Pesky died on August 13 at the age of 92.

Between my father's boyhood and my son's, Johnny Pesky was a nearly constant presence for Red Sox fans. He was a player, the manager, a coach, the general manager and a radio and TV announcer. For generations, he was a goodwill ambassador for the Red Sox and the game of baseball.
Fans who arrived early at Fenway Park could see him hit fungoes and, later, grounders to players in pre-game warm ups. He would put on his uniform and carry a bat to the field and hit, well into his eighties. Often, he would then move to the railing along the first base stands and give away baseballs and autographs, paying particular attention to kids. He loved people, and they loved him back.

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, for the first time in 86 years, Pesky was in the St. Louis clubhouse to greet them. His obvious joy brought many players to tears. I stood on the sidewalk with my son when the team held its celebratory parade through the streets of Boston, and no one - not MVP Manny Ramirez, not pitching hero Curt Schilling, not manager Terry Francona - got bigger cheers as he rode by than did Pesky.
He was a link to the glory days of the past, lifelong friends with his Hall of Fame teammates Williams and Bobby Doerr. When the Red Sox celebrated the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park in April 2012, Pesky and Doerr, both wheelchair-bound, were the final players to take the field; to a misty-eyed ovation.
In these days when players make salaries that guarantee multi-generational wealth, it is unlikely there will ever be another player who maintains the kind of multi-generational connection to any team that Pesky had with the Red Sox. His passing ends an era, but his memory will linger.