Boston Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro is carried off the field on a stretcher after he was beaned during a game at Fenway Park on Aug. 18, 1967. AP FILE PHOTO: BILL CHAPLIS THE TRAGEDY OF TONY C BY STEVE KRAUSE 24 | ONE MAGAZINE | SUMMER 20<strong>17</strong>
50 YEARS AGO, BEANBALL CUT SHORT TONY CONIGLIARO’S CAREER He had been in a slump. Tony Conigliaro, the 22-year-old kid who, earlier in 1967, had become the youngest player in American League history to reach the 100-homer mark, was in a rut and hadn’t hit one out in 10 days. “He’d had some pretty good stats up to that time,” said teammate and friend Rico Petrocelli, “but yeah, he was struggling. We always talked about waiting on the ball. When you’re in a slump you always tend to rush things. He wanted to wait on the ball. That’s what all the great hitters could do. Tony probably had that on his mind. Wait … wait … wait until the last second.” “Unfortunately,” said Petrocelli, “it worked against him. He didn’t have enough time to get out of the way.” Tony Conigliaro was a local idol - the Swampscott kid (via East Boston) and St. Mary’s High graduate who had made his Major League debut with the Red Sox at age 19 and homered in his first at-bat, on the first pitch he saw off Joel Horlen of the Chicago White Sox in 1964, at Fenway Park. In no time, he became the toast of the town. He even recorded rock ’n’ roll records. “I remember seeing him open his trunk up once and there were all these 45s of ‘Little Red Scooter’ (one of his recordings that got local airplay),” said Frank Carey, a lifelong friend and teammate at St. Mary’s. “He loved that stuff.” Just about every Red Sox fan probably wanted to be Tony Conigliaro, and a good many female fans surely would have dated him if they’d had the chance. That all changed in a split second 50 years ago, on Aug. 18, 1967 -- Tony Conigliaro’s Day of Infamy. The Red Sox were playing the California Angels (as they were called at the time) and both teams were in the thick of a pennant race that -- even that late into the summer -- involved half of the American League’s 10 franchises (Boston, California, Minnesota AP FILE PHOTO: FRANK CURTIN Red Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro relaxes in the Red Sox locker room before a game. Twins, Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers). The game was scoreless going into the bottom of the fourth inning. Conigliaro, batting sixth that night, had already hit a single, and it looked like his efforts to break out of his slump had paid off. “He was a streak hitter,” said middle brother Billy Conigliaro, himself a player in the Red Sox minor league system at the time. “We were talking at home that afternoon and he said he was going to stand closer to the plate and stay in a little longer before making a commitment to the pitch,” Billy said. “(Tony) always crowded the plate,” said Carey, a member of the National High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame who spent 49years at North Reading High. “He was fearless. I can remember back in 1964 he was going to face (Yankee Hall of Famer) Whitey Ford. “Now, Ford was well past his prime,” said Carey, “ but he was still, you know, Whitey Ford. But Tony says ‘I’m going to get him,’ and he did. He could always back it up.” That confidence wasn’t anything new. “One day in high school, we’re going up to St. John’s Prep and Danny Murphy (of Beverly, who later pitched for the White Sox and Chicago Cubs) was on the mound,” said Lynn School Committee Secretary Tom Iarrobino, a teammate of both Carey and Conigliaro in high school. “Same thing. ‘I’ll take him deep!’ We tell him, ‘Tony you can’t say things like that.’ Sure enough, he gets up and hits one out. He was only a sophomore at the time.” To that point in the 1967 season, Conigliaro had hit 20 home runs and knocked in 67 runs. With Carl Yastrzemski hitting in front of him for most of the season, they’d formed a potent 1-2 punch. Conigliaro was the third hitter up in the bottom of the fourth. George Scott led off with a single, and Reggie Smith had flied out. Richie Conigliaro recalls that a smoke bomb then went off in left field, delaying the game for almost 15 minutes. Finally, Conigliaro dug in against Angels pitcher Jack Hamilton in his customary wideopen stance, legs spread apart, bat high behind his shoulder. The ball came in, high and tight - a brushback pitch. “It was a fastball,” confirmed Petrocelli, who was on deck. “A lot of times, when you’re in a slump, you wait up there in case it’s a curveball or a changeup. Who knows? He may have been thinking about a breaking ball.” Also, said Petrocelli, “Tony had a little blind spot inside. He got it a few other times too, in the back, or in the arm. I think he fractured his arm once. CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 25| ONE MAGAZINE | SUMMER 20<strong>17</strong>
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