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On the night of August 18, 1967, at Fenway Park, Jack Hamilton was just another right-handed pitcher with the California Angels. Tony Conigliaro was the twenty-two-year-old swashbuckling slugger with the Red Sox. When Hamilton accidentally drilled a fastball into Conigliaro's left eye, everything changed. Tony C was forever the guy whose fabulous career was derailed by a horrible beaning. Hamilton was forever the guy who beaned him.
"I didn't have that great a career," Hamilton said nearly twenty-three years later from his Branson, Montana, home. "I was only a mediocre ballplayer. But I hate to be remembered for that one thing. It's just something I have to live with."
"It was a fastball that got away,"said Hamilton. "I don't think he ever saw the ball. In my opinion, he just froze. I just think he lost sight of it."
"It was awful. Just awful," Bill Rigney, the Angels manager that night, recalled in February 1990. "The sound was just terrible. You never forget the sound of something like that."
"I was on deck, and I ran over to him," said Red Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli, twenty-three years later. "I saw his face. It was blown up like a balloon. No Kidding. It was just blown up in that spot, like you would blow up a balloon. The blood was rushing to that area. It looked like someone had cut his eye to allow blood to get out. Anytime you see something like that, you get some fear. It stays in your mind. No batter alive wants to get hit in the face like that."
The night Tony C was hit changed everything. For the Red Sox, the "Impossible Dream"-the wild, crazy summer that revived baseball in Bostonâ??had taken a quick, nightmarish turn. "Mostly everybody got angry," said Petrocelli. "All of a sudden, he was out of the lineup and it looked like he would never play again. We were angry at the Angels and everybody else. I remember myself, Yaz, and Jim Lonborg, we got so angry at that moment. We wanted to go out and kill Hamilton."
"I tried to see him in the hospital that night, but the family wasn't allowing any visitors," Hamilton said. "We left town after that, and I never got the chance to talk to him. I knew he was in pretty bad shape. I didn't think there was any point in writing him a letter or anything. I'm sure he didn't think I did it on purpose. I hope he didn't think that."
Conigliaro's cheekbone was fractured, his jaw was dislocated, and his retina was damaged. He did not rejoin the Red Sox until 1969â??he had an outstanding season in 1970â??but he suffered vision problems that forced him out of baseball. In 1982, Conigliaro suffered a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven that left him severely incapacitated.
What if he had never been hit? "He had everything ahead of him," said Rigney. "I thought about the night he got hit every time I ran into him."
"I thought about it whenever I got close to somebody with a pitch," said Hamilton, who retired after the 1969 season. "Whenever I see a brushback on TV, it catches my attention. I kind of kept up on what he was doing. I picked up every time I heard his name."
On Saturday night, February 24, 1990, Hamilton was watching late sports and weather on TV when he learned Tony Conigliaro had died at age forty-five. "I wondered if in some way I was responsible for it," said Hamilton. "Maybe I started all the bad things for him. Nobody ever said anything like that. I just kind of thought it. You never know. It's like if you run over a little kid backing your car out of your driveway. It's just something you've got to live with."
From the book 'Peanuts & Crackerjack' by David Cataneo.
**Please do not post on this thread**
Edit: Fixed punctuation. -Admin
[Edited on 3-16-2012 by Admin]
The Tony Conigliaro story.
February 05, 2004 at 09:33PM View BBCode
The Tony Conigliaro League was named in his honor, because he represents the unknown. One pitch destroyed what could have been a Hall of Fame career. The story of that pitch follows:On the night of August 18, 1967, at Fenway Park, Jack Hamilton was just another right-handed pitcher with the California Angels. Tony Conigliaro was the twenty-two-year-old swashbuckling slugger with the Red Sox. When Hamilton accidentally drilled a fastball into Conigliaro's left eye, everything changed. Tony C was forever the guy whose fabulous career was derailed by a horrible beaning. Hamilton was forever the guy who beaned him.
"I didn't have that great a career," Hamilton said nearly twenty-three years later from his Branson, Montana, home. "I was only a mediocre ballplayer. But I hate to be remembered for that one thing. It's just something I have to live with."
"It was a fastball that got away,"said Hamilton. "I don't think he ever saw the ball. In my opinion, he just froze. I just think he lost sight of it."
"It was awful. Just awful," Bill Rigney, the Angels manager that night, recalled in February 1990. "The sound was just terrible. You never forget the sound of something like that."
"I was on deck, and I ran over to him," said Red Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli, twenty-three years later. "I saw his face. It was blown up like a balloon. No Kidding. It was just blown up in that spot, like you would blow up a balloon. The blood was rushing to that area. It looked like someone had cut his eye to allow blood to get out. Anytime you see something like that, you get some fear. It stays in your mind. No batter alive wants to get hit in the face like that."
The night Tony C was hit changed everything. For the Red Sox, the "Impossible Dream"-the wild, crazy summer that revived baseball in Bostonâ??had taken a quick, nightmarish turn. "Mostly everybody got angry," said Petrocelli. "All of a sudden, he was out of the lineup and it looked like he would never play again. We were angry at the Angels and everybody else. I remember myself, Yaz, and Jim Lonborg, we got so angry at that moment. We wanted to go out and kill Hamilton."
"I tried to see him in the hospital that night, but the family wasn't allowing any visitors," Hamilton said. "We left town after that, and I never got the chance to talk to him. I knew he was in pretty bad shape. I didn't think there was any point in writing him a letter or anything. I'm sure he didn't think I did it on purpose. I hope he didn't think that."
Conigliaro's cheekbone was fractured, his jaw was dislocated, and his retina was damaged. He did not rejoin the Red Sox until 1969â??he had an outstanding season in 1970â??but he suffered vision problems that forced him out of baseball. In 1982, Conigliaro suffered a heart attack at the age of thirty-seven that left him severely incapacitated.
What if he had never been hit? "He had everything ahead of him," said Rigney. "I thought about the night he got hit every time I ran into him."
"I thought about it whenever I got close to somebody with a pitch," said Hamilton, who retired after the 1969 season. "Whenever I see a brushback on TV, it catches my attention. I kind of kept up on what he was doing. I picked up every time I heard his name."
On Saturday night, February 24, 1990, Hamilton was watching late sports and weather on TV when he learned Tony Conigliaro had died at age forty-five. "I wondered if in some way I was responsible for it," said Hamilton. "Maybe I started all the bad things for him. Nobody ever said anything like that. I just kind of thought it. You never know. It's like if you run over a little kid backing your car out of your driveway. It's just something you've got to live with."
From the book 'Peanuts & Crackerjack' by David Cataneo.
**Please do not post on this thread**
Edit: Fixed punctuation. -Admin
[Edited on 3-16-2012 by Admin]
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