Uniform & Team History
Johnny Pesky’s name is synonymous with the Boston Red Sox, for whom he worked in a variety of capacities for more than 60 years. A .308 lifetime hitter, he had three 200-hit seasons.
Oldtime Game History
This uniform was added to our collection specifically for the 1999 Game, and worn by Johnny Pesky as a coach. Pesky returned to The Game over the years wearing his own Red Sox uniform, asking that a player wear his throwback uniform. Junior Medina of Stonehill College, who wore it in 2001, went on to play professionally for Adirondack of the Northern League. The uniform took on an international flavor in 2007, when it was worn by Masakazu Ezure, who had pitched for Waseda University in Tokyo. Ezure, who was in Boston covering Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka for a Tokyo television station, struck out the side in his one inning on the mound.
A new version of this uniform was added to the game beginning in 2010 and was worn by Mike Del Ponte, Bryant University (’10).
Johnny Pesky died on August 13, 2012, the day of the 19th annual Oldtime Baseball Game. A decision was made that Johnny would have wanted his uniform to be used, and it was. Doing the honors was James Mulry of West Roxbury, Mass., an incoming freshman at Northeastern University, who also wore it in 2013, ’14 and ’15. Mulry gained greater fame in the spring of 2014 when he registered back-to-back strikeouts of David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia during the Huskies’ annual exhibition game against the Red Sox.
Also worn by:
(Original uniform): Bo Delduca, UMass/Dartmouth (’02); Mike Cosenza, Fordham University (’03); Josh Farkes, University of Richmond (’04); Chris Bodnar, Amherst College (’05); Jim Cody, coach (’06).
(Replacement uniform): Daveson Perez, Boston Red Sox media relations specialist, (’17-18); Joe Bova, University of Southern Maine, (’22).