Page 226 - 1975 BoSox

“One of the greatest things the Red Sox ever did in all the years I’ve known them was when they brought Pop Popowski up here after 30 years in the minors working with young players and made him a coach. He’s one of the greatest baseball men I’ve ever known in this game.”
— Ted Williams1
“ e reasons for my election are many. I can never forget, nor will I, the hundreds of hours of help and inspiration given me by so many people. Both in the minor leagues starting with Eddie Popowski....”
— Carl Yastrzemski, 1989 Hall of Fame induc- tion speech
INDEED, 30 YEARS AFTER HIS debut in Organized Baseball, Eddie Popowski nally made the major leagues
in 1967 — and the Red Sox won the pennant his very rst year. Before the manager had even been selected, general manager Dick O’Connell hired Popowski as a coach for the 1967 season. A tough-talking but warm-hearted coach, Popowski had managed most of the players coming up in the Red Sox minor-league system and was somewhat of a father gure to several.
Edward Joseph Popowski was born on August 20, 1913, in Sayreville, New Jersey. His parents had im- migrated from Poland and his father took
a job at the brickyard in Sayreville. Eddie
was one of ve children — four boys and a girl. Eddie went to St. Stanislaus, the Polish Catholic school in town. He was known to play a little hooky from time to time so he could play more ball. ere was sandlot ball, and he and his brothers played town ball for Holy Trinity church as well.
Universally called “Pop” in the Red Sox system, he was known as “Buddy” to his friends in Sayreville, his lifelong residence. Elston Howard attended a home- town banquet held in Pop’s honor after the 1967 season and joked, “He may be small, but all the players look up to him. But I don’t know where they get this name Buddy from. I’ve always known him as Ed.”2
Economics forced Popowski to leave school after the eighth grade. In 1931 he was working on an ice wagon for $18 a week and playing on the Sayreville town team when the House of David baseball team signed him. e 17-year-old was conspicuous not only for his size (only 5-feet-41⁄2 inches and 145 pounds) but for his inability to grow the trademark long beard of the House of David players.
With the House of David touring team, Popowski played as many as 256 games in one season, often playing two or three games a day. By 1936 he was earning $175 a month as a player, with another $25 for participating in a vaudeville-style pepper game after the seventh inning of each game. His gimmicks would be put to use in his coaching days. In addition to juggling baseballs in the coaching box during a lop- sided game, he would also eld foul balls and return them to the pitcher with a behind-the-back toss that became known to generations of Sox players and fans as the Popowski Flip.
Red Sox scouts signed Popowski to a contract in 1936, but Eddie felt he owed it to the House of David to nish the season with them. His Organized Baseball debut would wait until 1937, when he reported to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, of the Class A New York- Penn League. He led the league’s second basemen in elding average and batted a respectable .281 but with no home runs.
Eddie Popowski
by Wayne Mcelreavy
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