# Tony Conigliaro

Anthony Richard Conigliaro (January 7, 1945 – February 24, 1990), nicknamed "Tony C" and "Conig", was an American Major League Baseball outfielder and right-handed batter who played for the Boston Red Sox (1964–1967, 1969–1970, 1975) and California Angels (1971). Born in Revere, Massachusetts, he was a 1962 graduate of St. Mary's High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. Conigliaro started his MLB career as a teenager, hitting a home run in his first at-bat during his home field debut in 1964, and reaching 100 career home runs faster than any player in American League history.
During the Red Sox "Impossible Dream" season of 1967, he was hit in the face by a pitch that caused a severe eye injury and derailed his career. He did not play in 1968, but in 1969 he came back and had a good year with 20 home runs and 82 runs batted in. In 1970, Conigliaro had a wonderful year. He hit 36 home runs and knocked in 116 runs. Then, in 1971, the Red Sox sent him to the California Angels for reasons that were never explained. That 1971 seaon with the Angels was not a good one for Conigliaro, and following that year he retired. After retirement from baseball, he had a heart attack and suffered brain damage at age 37, leaving him severely impaired for the last eight years of his life. Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons' article in Sports Illustrated at the time of Conigliaro's 1990 death is entitled "A Life Torn By Tragedy."

## Early life

Conigliaro was born in Revere, Massachusetts, on January 7, 1945. He was raised in Orient Heights, East Boston, Swampscott and Nahant, Massachusetts. He attended St. Mary's High School in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he played starting quarterback on the football team and starred in baseball. In 2020, the school retired his jersey number (12), and unveiled a portrait of Conigliaro that is in the lobby of its Tony Conigliaro Gymnasium.

## Baseball career

Conigliaro was signed by the Red Sox in 1962, at the age of 17, for $20,000. In 1963, he batted .363 with 24 home runs, and an on-base plus slugging (OPS) of 1.139, playing for the Wellsville Red Sox in the Single-A New York–Penn League. He was the league's Rookie-of-the-Year and its Most Valuable Player. In the fall of 1963, he played instructional league baseball in Sarasota, and was included on the Red Sox 1964 roster coming into spring training. At 19 years old he made the team going into the 1964 season, without returning to the minor leagues.
During his 1964 rookie season, Conigliaro batted .290 with 24 home runs and 52 RBI in 111 games, but a pitched ball broke his arm and his toes in August. On the first pitch of his first at-bat in Fenway Park, in the team's 1964 opening home game, Conigliaro hit a towering home run in the second inning against the White Sox. The proceeds of that game went to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, to honor the recently assassinated President, and those in attendance that day included among others Robert F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and Governor Endicott Peabody. (His first major league hit came a day earlier against the New York Yankees, in New York.)
In 1965, Conigliaro led the league in home runs (32), becoming the youngest home run champion in American League history. He batted .269, with 82 RBI and 82 runs scored, and a .850 OPS. He suffered a cracked wrist from a pitched ball that year, but still played in 138 games. In 1966, he hit .265, with 28 home runs and 93 RBI, playing in 150 games.
During spring training in 1967, Conigliaro suffered a hairline arm fracture from a pitched ball. Through 95 games, he had 20 home runs in only 349 at-bats, while batting .287 with 67 RBI, 59 runs scored, and an .860 OPS. He was selected for the All-Star Game in 1967. In that season, at age 22, he not only reached a career total of 100 home runs, but attained that milestone at the youngest age for an American League player.
On August 18, 1967, in his 95th game of the season, the Red Sox were playing the California Angels at Fenway Park. Conigliaro, batting against Jack Hamilton, was hit by a pitch on his left cheekbone and was carried off the field on a stretcher. He sustained a linear fracture of the left cheekbone and a dislocated jaw with severe damage to his left retina. He was left with 20–300 vision and stabbing headaches. Those in attendance knew the injury was serious from the sound of the ball striking Conigliaro. The batting helmet he was wearing did not have the protective ear-flap that has since become standard, partly due to this incident.
He missed the remainder of the 1967 season, and was unable to play at all in the 1968 season because of poor vision. In 1967, he was replaced in right field by José Tartabull and Ken Harrelson. The Red Sox reached the World Series, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals four games to three. During the World Series, Harrelson hit .077 in 13 at-bats, and Tartabull hit .154 in 13 at-bats. During the regular season, the two combined for only three home runs and 24 RBI in 327 at-bats.
A year and a half later, in 1969, Conigliaro made a remarkable return, hitting 20 home runs with 82 RBI in 141 games. He earned Comeback Player of the Year honors. In 1970, he reached career-high numbers in home runs (36) and RBI (116). Conigliaro said he batted most of the season with his left eye almost closed. That season, he and his brother Billy formed two-thirds of the Red Sox outfield. Shortly after the season ended, on October 11, 1970, the Red Sox traded, Conigliaro, Ray Jarvis and Jerry Moses to the California Angels for Ken Tatum, Jarvis Tatum and Doug Griffin. (In 1970, pitcher Ken Tatum had hit the Orioles Paul Blair in the face with a pitch that resulted in multiple fractures and the need for surgery.) There was some controversy surrounding the trade.
His vision deteriorated in 1971, including a lack of depth perception and blind spots in his vision. He went on the disabled list in July, and formally retired from baseball at the end of the season, only 26 years old. In 1971, Conigliaro played in only 74 games, batting .222 with four home runs. In 1972, he opened a resort in Nahant. He returned to the Red Sox briefly in 1975 as a designated hitter, hitting two home runs in 21 games, but was forced to retire because his eyesight had been permanently damaged. He played his final games for the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox of the International League.
Conigliaro batted .267, with 162 home runs and 501 RBI during his 802-game Red Sox career. With the Angels, he hit .222 with 4 home runs and 15 RBI in 74 games. He is the second-youngest player to hit his 100th homer (after Mel Ott), and the youngest American League player to do so.

## Final years and death

After his retirement, in the fall of 1975, Conigliaro opened a restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, managed by his brother Billy. In September of that same year, he was hired by WJAR TV 10 in Providence as a sports anchor. In August 1976, he moved to a similar position at KGO-TV Channel 7 in San Francisco, and won an Emmy award. He had also owned a health food store in California. It is also reported he worked as a sportscaster in Providence.
On January 9, 1982, then 37-year-old Conigliaro was in Boston to interview for a broadcasting position when he suffered a heart attack while being driven to the airport by his brother Billy. Shortly thereafter, he suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. Conigliaro never fully recovered and suffered slight brain damage due to the stroke, until his death more than eight years later, in February 1990, at the age of 45 from pneumonia and kidney failure. In commemoration, the Red Sox wore black armbands that season. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts. Conigliaro's parents and brothers cared for him closely during his last eight years, during which time he was bedridden, unable to walk and barely able to speak.
During 1982, Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, whose wife had come out of a coma three years earlier, visited Conigliaro to try and give him some optimism. In 1983, when insurance funds were running low to cover Conigliaro's medical care, teammates and others stepped in to raise money to help Conigliaro and the family with his care. In one April fundraising event at Boston's Symphony Hall, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays were among those raising money to support Conigliaro ($230,000). Conigliaro, who once had a modest singing career, had recorded a song with Warwick in 1976. He had performed on The Merv Griffin Show a number of times.
Since 1990, the Tony Conigliaro Award, instituted by the Red Sox after his death, is given annually to the MLB player who best overcomes obstacles and adversities through the attributes of spirit, determination and courage that were considered Tony's trademarks.
While the tragedy of his life is well recorded, others have also tried to find inspiring aspects in his determination to overcome obstacles and reinvent himself.

## Conigliaro's Corner

For the start of the 2007 season, Red Sox ownership added a new 200-seat bleacher section on the right field roof, providing an additional 200 available tickets for the season. It was named "Conigliaro's Corner" in honor of Conigliaro. The seats were being marketed specifically towards families. As of May 2007, the section was reserved for Red Sox Nation members on Saturdays and Red Sox Kid Nation members on Sundays. The seats were removed prior to the start of the 2009 season.

## Works cited

* Conigliaro, Tony (August 1970). Seeing It Through. with Jack Zanger. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0025272903.