Page 55 - 1975 BoSox

48 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
Seattle. He hit only .231 and, homesick and depressed over his poor play, began to doubt his ability. At the suggestion of teammate Billy Gardner, he tried switch- hitting, and when the Red Sox named him their starting shortstop at the start of the 1965 season he was encouraged to continue the experiment by manager Billy Herman. e results were disastrous — he hit.174 through the rst 20 games, and the switch-hitting experiment was scrapped. Red Sox coach Pete Runnels suggested that Petrocelli try to pull the ball more to take advantage of the inviting left- eld wall. Rico spent the rest of the season re ning a new swing, steadily producing results. He hit his rst major-league home run on June 20 o left-hander Gary Peters of the Chicago White Sox, and ended with 13 for the season.
Petrocelli’s balky right elbow hampered his throwing for most of his rookie year and the problem persisted into the 1966 season, eventually landing him on the disabled list. To make matters worse, Petrocelli was not a favorite of Herman. e old-school manager had little patience for his brooding and insecurities, and made life miserable for the young shortstop. e situation came to a head when Petrocelli left the team in the middle of a game to tend to a family emergency. Herman demanded that he be suspended. Instead, he was ned $1,000. It did little to calm the con ict between manager and player. ings were nally re- solved when Herman was red in September, but even with his tormentor gone Petrocelli felt sure he would either be traded or sent back to the minors.
In 1967, new manager Dick Williams took a di erent tack with Petrocelli. He brought Red Sox minor-league coach Eddie Popowski to Boston as the new third-base coach and gave him the locker next to Petrocelli’s. e good-natured Popowski had managed Petrocelli at both Winston-Salem in 1962 and at Reading in 1963, and helped to build the young shortstop’s self-esteem with daily pep talks. Williams also helped Petrocelli to mature as a player by giving him the responsibility of being the leader of the club’s young in eld. e moves gave him new-found con dence, and he blos- somed as a player. He drove in the rst run of the
season with a single in the Red Sox’ 5-4 win over Chicago on Opening Day and added a three-run homer later in the game. He earned the starting nod at shortstop for the American League in the All-Star Game, and nished with a solid all-around season batting .259 with 17 homers and 66 RBIs for the pennant-bound Red Sox.
Petrocelli was a central gure in the famous Red Sox-Yankees brawl at Yankee Stadium on the evening of June 21. Both benches cleared after the two longtime rivals exchanged beanballs, then Petrocelli and Yankees rst baseman Joe Pepitone got involved in some friendly verbal jousting. e two were friends who had grown up in Brooklyn together, but somehow things escalated quickly into a full-scale battle. It took a dozen Yankee Stadium security guards, including Petrocelli’s brother David (who pulled Rico out from under a pile of Yankees), to help restore order. e ght was recognized as a de ning moment that helped to bring the ’67 Red Sox together as a team. Boston fashioned a league-best 60-39 record from that point on, winning the pennant on the nal day of the season with a 5-3 win over the Minnesota Twins. Petrocelli’s catch of Rich Rollins’ popup was the nal out in Boston’s “Impossible Dream” pennant, a catch that became one of the signature moments in the history of the franchise.
Petrocelli had little success at the plate against the St. Louis Cardinals through the rst ve games of the World Series. Extremely run down by the long season, Petrocelli had a Vitamin B-12 shot prior to Game Six and proceeded to hit two home runs — a feat ac- complished by only one other shortstop (Alan Trammell) in a World Series game. His second homer was one of three hit by the Red Sox in the fourth inning, a World Series record. Although Boston lost Game Seven to the Cardinals, the future seemed bright for both the Red Sox and Petrocelli.
e success of 1967 soon dissipated as a series of in- juries doomed the defending American League champions to a fourth-place nish in 1968. Petrocelli’s batting average plummeted some 25 points as the chronic problem with his right elbow ared, causing