The Boston Red Sox retired Pesky's number in 2008.
Joseph Brozek, of Belchertown, is shown her in a 2004 photograph with Boston Red Sox great Johnny Pesky. Pesky died Aug. 13 at the age of 92.It might as well have been an audience with a pope or a president. I felt like the luckiest person on the face of the Earth that afternoon in the spring of 2002.
The Boston Red Sox had new ownership; hope sprang anew that our boys of summer would kill the curse of the Bambino.
And, not only was I sitting in the home team’s dugout at Fenway Park, but I was getting some one-on-one time with a Red Sox legend: Johnny Pesky.
It couldn’t get much better, I thought. I owe it all to my “teammate” Garry Brown for putting me there, but that’s not the story here. It’s all about Mr. Pesky.
By now, I’m just one in a very long line of people sharing stories this week about “Mr. Red Sox;” Pesky died at age 92 on Monday. It’s the fact that so many of us fans have these stories which makes the “legend” moniker stick in this case.
As elusive and cantankerous as the great Carl Yastrzemski has been for Sox fans, avoiding us like the plague at public functions and being stingy with his “John Hancock,” Pesky was the complete opposite. He was, as one fellow fan described him to me, “the fans’ man.”
Pesky personified all of our collective affection for the team and was ever present in the lives of Sox fans young and old.
Down south at spring training in Florida, he would willingly sit in the sun for hours before game time, signing autographs (with the neatest and most precise of penmanship, by the way) and talking to fans who’d come his way. He always seemed as in love with us as we were with him.
“We all adored him,” commented a member of the BoSox Club on the club’s Facebook page on Monday afternoon within hours of the sad announcement from Fenway. The group is the official booster club of the Boston Red Sox, which one of Pesky’s teammates from that 1946 World Series team, Domenic DiMaggio, helped found back in the 1960s, and Pesky was frequent attendee at many of its luncheons and events.
At Fenway, in a role cemented by the new owners that spring a decade ago, Pesky had a place at the start of each game in the home dugout. Over the course of more than 60 years, he’d filled many a role, even including a stint as manager.
When word came of Pesky’s death, it wasn’t unexpected. His health had taken tumble in recent years, and his times with the team became less frequent. When my friends and I didn’t see him this spring at the new JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, we wondered aloud if we would see him again.
I got my first Pesky autograph at the Minnesota Twins’ Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers when the Twins’ famed groundskeeper, George Toma, took pity on me after asking who my favorite Red Sox player was. I’d asked him if he could get a Pesky signature for me, and Toma initially said it couldn’t be done. But, after he asked if I knew who Bobby Doerr was (I did), he changed his mind, took my ball, crossed the field and came back with “Johnny Pesky” inscribed on it.
Little did I know that I’d one day be sitting by his side with Pesky sharing his perspectives on the hallowed ground of Fenway. A shrine, he told me of how he viewed the park. “With the seats empty, it looks good, doesn’t it?“ he added.
In this June 9, 2010, photo released by the Boston Red Sox, Red Sox legends Johnny Pesky, left, and Bobby Doerr stand in front of "The Teammates" sculpture, depicting them with teammates Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams., outside Fenway Park in Boston. The sculpture shows from left, Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Dom DiMaggio.“For me, (Fenway)’s a beautiful thing,“ Pesky said that afternoon about two weeks after his old friend and teammate Ted Williams had died. “I’ve seen games won and lost by the bounce of a baseball here. It’s a very unique place. I’ve got a lot of great memories and sad memories, mostly good ones, though.”
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Pesky.
We hope readers will share their memories of meeting Johnny Pesky.