Johnny Pesky leaves big legacy

It was easy to fool yourself into thinking that Johnny Pesky was Boston-born and bred. But while his beloved wife Ruthie was a gal from Lynn, and while Johnny seemed to know everyone in New England from Sanford, Maine, to Seekonk, the reality is that he was born and raised in Portland, Ore.

Yet he was one of us. Man, was he ever. Johnny died yesterday afternoon. As his longtime friend Tim Samway told me yesterday, “He died peacefully, as I hoped he would.”

He was 92, I guess, though the reality is that it was a long time ago that Johnny shaved a year off his age. But come on, Johnny had been fooling us on that age thing for decades, always presenting himself as much, much younger than the stats on his birth certificate.

Until about 10 years ago, he was hitting infield at Fenway Park [map]. As recently as five years ago, at our Oldtime Baseball Game in Cambridge, he was doing the same task — for both teams. That’s not a banquet story. That’s reality.

Where to begin with the telling of Johnny’s story? You know the basics. He broke in with the Red Sox [team stats] in 1942 and hit .331. He had 205 hits that season, too, and Red Sox fans could see a burgeoning dynasty as he, Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr exploded into prominence.

But while Williams and Doerr wound up in the Hall of Fame, Johnny, perhaps more than any other player, had his Cooperstown dreams dashed by answering his country’s call. He lost three seasons to the Navy and World War II. Though he hit .335 in 1946 and helped propel the Red Sox to the World Series, he never really was the same player.

He would up playing 10 seasons, hitting .307 in his career. Traded by the Sox in 1952, he closed out his career bouncing around from the Detroit Tigers to the Washington Senators.

Johnny perhaps is best known for “holding the ball” in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series as Enos “Country” Slaughter made his mad dash from first to home with what would be the winning run. The myth is that Johnny stood there with the ball; the reality is that Slaughter was running on the pitch and it was outfielder Leon Culberson, not Pesky, who had the play in front of him.

Pesky took a lot of grief for that, but in typical fashion, he turned the episode into a veritable vaudeville routine.

He often told the tale of going home after the ’46 World Series and attending the Oregon-Oregon State football game, and how, “It was a rainy, muddy day, and players were slipping all over the place. Every other play was a fumble. Finally one guy stands up and yells, ‘Give the ball to Pesky, he’ll hold onto it!’ ”

Pesky later had a brief, unsuccessful tenure as manager of the Red Sox. He never had a chance. Too nice a guy. He then returned as a broadcaster, front office executive, ad salesman and, most importantly, goodwill ambassador.

It was in that last role that Pesky became a New England icon. For while old-timers could identify with him because they saw him play, younger Red Sox fans identified with him because they could touch him, listen to his stories and, in doing so, celebrate baseball.

Red Sox owners John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino knew what they had in Johnny. It’s why he was brought along to St. Louis for the clinching game of the 2004 World Series — in the very city where Pesky had had his heart, but not his spirit, broken in 1946.

The Sox owners also retired Johnny’s No. 6 a few years back. It was the right thing to do, and Johnny cried about it all day when he heard the news.

On a personal note, please allow me to say I loved this man. I would occasionally drive up to his home in Swampscott on some pretense — “I need a quote,” I’d say — but really, I just wanted to hear his stories.

Johnny used to joke that his autograph was only worth about 10 cents.
Johnny was right.
That’s because pretty much everyone had one.
Rest, my friend. Say hi to Ruthie. And Ted and Dommie, too.
Amazingly, 19-year-old kids were crying for you yesterday.
That’s quite a legacy.