In the Baseball Notes section of Sunday’s Globe, Nick Cafardo wrote that “It’s neat that Bobby Valentine will wear Tony Conigliaro’s number, honoring his former Padres roommate.” Cafardo must have meant the Angels, since Tony never played for the Padres. “If I were the Sox,” he continues, “this would be a perfect year to have a ceremony where Bobby V takes off his jersey and the number is retired.”
I heartily agree. If Tony had not been beaned by Jack Hamilton on that fateful August night in 1967, he might today be at least a candidate for the Major League Hall of Fame. Let’s forget the number of seasons required to retire a man’s number. In the mid 60’s, Tony was one of the few reasons I, or most Sox fans for that matter, listened to Curt Gowdy and Ned Martin every night, despite the fact that the team was normally around eighth place.
Tony was exciting, cocky, and controversial, in the days when GM Mike Higgins was probably doing little more than think of ways he could hold down the number of African-American players on the team. It was my privelege to have an article published on Boston Sports Media.com a few years ago, chronicling Conigliaro’s up-and-down career as a sportscaster and his sad and tragic final years. Every Sox fan should read Seeing it Through, published around 1970. It contains Tony’s description of Hamilton’s ball as it approached his skull.One of the scariest sports pieces I have ever read. Another fine book is Tony C:
Triumph and Tragedy by former beat writer David Cataneo. It is a fitting title, but after the beaning, there was much more tragedy than triumph in Conigliaro’s life.
His number belongs up there along with Williams and Yastrzemski.
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