An Unfinished Career

He led the American League in home runs at the mere age of 19. He amassed 100 HRs in just 3 seasons.  He was a local athlete from Revere, MA and lived out his childhood dream of playing in Fenway Park for his beloved Red Sox. He had Hollywood good looks and charisma to match. The Red Sox Nation affectionately referred to him as Tony C., short for Tony Conigliaro.  He was the right guy, in the right sport, in the right town, and the right time.

It was said that Tony C possessed the "Fenway Park Stroke", a swing that enabled him to launch or yank home runs over Fenway's "Green Monster" which stood only 315 feet from homeplate but stretched over 37 feet high. When most hitters would experience long singles and doubles, Tony C's stroke enabled his long fly balls to hurdle over the high wall for home runs.  He was a clutch hitter.

He was on the "Impossible Dream" team of 1967, which had finished dead last in 1966, with aspirations of winning an American League Championship for the first time since 1946. That team consisted of some up and coming talent (Reggie Smith, Rico Petrocelli, George Scott, Jim Lonborg, and Mike Andrews) mixed in with solid veterans (Yaz namely).

With all this going for him and the Red Sox, the future looked extremely bright until that fateful night in August, 1967 when a Jack Hamilton fastball smashed into the left side of his face causing severe eye damage. Though he made a successful comeback in 1970, he was never the same hitter. He retired from baseball in 1975 ending what might have been and what should have been a very successful, perhaps Hall of Fame, career.

Through it all, friends and family shared that he never complained of having been dealt a bad hand. His unfinished career carried into an unfinished life as Tony C. passed away at the young age of 45 from a stroke.  I undertand that Jack Hamilton was never the same pitcher after that traumatic night in 1967.