Red Sox To Retire Johnny Pesky's Number 6

by Jon Azpiri | September 23, 2008 at 03:02 pm

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It takes a lot to get the Boston Red Sox to retire your number. The storied franchise rarely takes one of its jersey numbers out of commission, but has decided to make an exception for local legend Johnny Pesky.

The team will retire Pesky's number 6 this Friday, a day before his 89th birthday. Pesky has been a fixture at Fenway Park for more than 50 years.

Pesky, who played seven full seasons with the Red Sox before being traded to Detroit early in the 1952 season, was a .307 lifetime hitter and had three 200-hit seasons.

He returned to Boston to manage the Red Sox in 1963 and 1964, and later served the club as a broadcaster, coach, special consultant and, for the past couple of decades, a sort of ambassador of goodwill who up until a couple of years ago was still banging out grounders prior to Sox home games.

He still makes daily trips to Fenway Park, and continues to have his own locker in the team’s clubhouse.

Pesky will become one of only five Red Sox palyers to have their numbers retired. There others are Bobby Doerr (#1), Joe Cronin (#4), Carl Yastrzemski (#8), Ted Williams (# 9) and Carlton Fisk (#27). The Red Sox, along with every other team in the Major Leagues, have also retired the #42 in honour of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the Major League's modern era.

Long-time Red Sox fans will say that the team has given him a far greater tribute than a retired number. Fenway's right field foul pole is known as Pesky's Pole.