Ken Copper: Johnny Pesky

He always had a bat in his hands.

Number 6 waves to the fans

It was the very early 1970's and I was attempting to re-start my broadcast career after a stint in the Army. I noticed this guy--he was impossible to miss--as I wandered about Chain O' Lakes Park in the orange blossom infused air of Winter Haven, Florida. Back then Winter Haven was the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox and WSIR radio, their local affiliate, was my place of employ. My boss was a big fan of the Sox and insisted on heavy coverage of the team in addition to carrying every Spring training and regular season game. I was excited that, along with my duties as morning show host at the station, my afternoons would revolve around interviewing anybody and everybody in the Red Sox organization for use on our pre-game show. I had access to pretty much the entire Boston team. This was going to be a cake gig.

As a kid growing up in Michigan, I had long been a fan of the Detroit Tigers. My dad was a lifelong White Sox guy and my brother was devoted to the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs. The Red Sox were merely a team from "out East" whose players often popped up in my youthful baseball card purchases unwanted and for the most part unknown. Unless they had a cool name--Pumpsie Green anybody?-- I would sooner have an extra slab of bubble gum than a Red Sox regular.

Johnny Pesky was a name I knew but really had no sense of the player or the man. I'd heard of the Pesky Pole, but nothing more. That changed.

Like I said, he always had a bat in his hands and as a coach was constantly hitting fungos. In fact he could do that while carrying on a conversation or yelling at a rookie for not hustling. It was easy to see that the veterans and new kids all liked him. He smiled because he was genuinely having a good time doing what he was born to do. His happiness was contagious. This was a BALLPLAYER!

I was slightly nervous about talking to some of these guys. The team featured the likes of Yaz, Pudge Fisk, Rico Petrocelli, Rick Wise, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Tim McCarver, and future All Stars Freddy Lynn and Dwight Evans. To my surprise I found that most were more than willing to cooperate with an interviewer barely worthy of his press credentials.

"Needle", because he looked so damn friendly, was one of the first interviews I attempted. The nickname was a product of Pesky's rather long narrow nose and he didn't seem to mind the moniker. The older guys used it more often than the kids. Johnny put me at ease right away as we sat in a shady corner of the home team dugout one day in early Spring 1974. He was a terrific interview. He had stories from his playing days in the 1940's and even more from his days as a broadcaster, front office executive , ad salesman and coach. His best friends were guys like Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Dom DiMaggio. A single question would call forth a world class recollection guaranteed to keep his listener riveted. He was a raconteur extraordinaire. I rolled a lot of tape on Johnny Pesky.

Born in Portland, Oregon, he signed with the Red Sox in 1939 after turning down a better offer from the St. Louis Cardinals. Money was never the most important thing to John. He became a very good player who had a career average of .307 over ten years in the "bigs", but never made what anybody would call a big paycheck. Probably the only thing that kept him from baseball's Hall of Fame was the loss of three seasons to his service in the Navy during World War II. He came back from the war just happy to be once again be one of the boys of Summer doing what he loved.

Pesky during playing days

During the couple of years I spent in Winter Haven I would talk with Johnny almost every day of the Red Sox camp. He was good with names and always remembered mine, no small thrill for a kid broadcaster. I became a true Red Sox fan during those years and would watch them on national TV every time they were on the schedule. In 1975 they were the American league champs who played the Cincinnati Reds in the BEST, at least in my opinion, World Series ever, and Johnny Pesky was there through all of it.

By the Summer of '81, I was working in San Francisco doing the morning show on K-101. Never being stout enough to catch many San Francisco Giant games at windblown Candlestick Park, I had become a bit of an Oakland A's fan. In fact, the Oakland Coliseum was a convenient stop on my daily commute to my home in Clayton just East of Walnut Creek. Often, if the A's were playing a day game, I would grab the station's box seat tickets and enjoy an afternoon of baseball in the not too warm Oakland sun. The seats were right behind the visiting team's dugout and, since the Red Sox were in town, I decided it was a perfect day to catch my favorite team.

I think I had it in the back of my head all along to try getting Johnny's attention. I was sure he wouldn't remember me, but I wanted to say "hi". I hollered at him when I saw his head pop out of the dugout during batting practice and he waved back while he walked toward the fence. I'm not sure if he remembered me but he was a nice enough guy to do a good job of faking it. We spoke briefly of Winter Haven and how they were getting along without me. He allowed that they were doing quite nicely and said that he was glad to see that I had stepped up to a radio market like San Francisco. Then he was off to work hitting fungos and cracking wise with the guys.

That was the last time I saw Johnny Pesky. Oh, sure, I saw him on TV from time to time. I especially looked for him when the Red Sox finally won the World Series by sweeping St. Louis in 2004. It was the first time since 1918 and he was there to see them do it! I thought of him as I watched the celebration. How good he must have felt.

A few years ago the Sox retired his number, 6, and he was so touched I heard that he cried about it most of the day. Nobody deserved it more.

Johnny Pesky died this past Monday August 13, 2012. He was 92--what everybody calls a "good run".
Red Sox Nation is still crying.