Reading the two stories about Tony C. in HOFMAG.com brought back many fond memories of my youth – and some not so fond.

Like most Red Sox fans of my generation, August 18, 1967 was a Friday night 40 years ago that I’ll never forget. I was a 17 year-old athlete getting ready for my senior year. Football double-sessions were imminent, but I was still living high off a very successful junior-year of high school baseball…and dreaming of someday playing for the Red Sox. Why not? If my favorite player, Tony Conigliaro, could make it at 19 years old, maybe my day wasn’t too far away either. Tony C. did that for athletes my age. He gave us hope.

The day started out great. California Governor Ronald Regan called for the withdrawal of troops from South Vietnam (unfortunately, on the deaf ears of President Johnson), and one of my favorite models, Veruschka, was on the cover of Life magazine. Like every other summer day, I’m sure I played sandlot baseball in the morning and basketball in the afternoon. My summer evenings were reserved for working at my father’s drive-in theater.

That Friday night was no different – a normal night at the drive-in packed with cars, as I worked in my corner of the snack-bar as the grill and pizza-man. My younger brother worked in the other corner making fries and clam cakes (a New England treat), and my mother worked the counter serving drinks and making popcorn. Dad was usually upfront at the ticket office. I don’t remember what the movie was that weekend. It might have been The Graduate - maybe Bonnie and Clyde or Cool Hand Luke. Or, it could have been one of my all-time favorites, The Dirty Dozen. In any case, it didn’t matter, as I was locked into the radio in my little corner. It was the magical year of 1967 and our loveable losers (Red Sox) were unimaginably making a run at the AL Pennant.

Unfortunately, the baseball season theoretically ended for me that night. Despite the Sox going on to win the pennant and playing one of the greatest World Series ever versus Gibson’s Cardinals, I couldn’t totally enjoy it after the beaning of Tony C. that memorable summer evening. Even the sound of the ball hitting Tony’s head on the radio was horrific – and the image of that black-eye photo of him will always be with me. My all-time favorite baseball player almost being killed by a pitched ball was unfathomable.

During the years, as I’ve thought back to those early Tony C-days, I remember him bringing a smile to my face while the world seemed to be going crazy. It was the early 1960s, and I was just a teenager – with turmoil all-around us. Remember, Tony C broke into the big leagues in the spring of 1964. He was at the Sox spring training camp in Scottsdale, Arizona only four months after President Kennedy was assassinated. If the killing of JFK wasn’t enough, the Vietnam conflict was becoming a nightly horror show on television. Tony’s emergence helped me forget about serious matters…even if only briefly.

Later that decade, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed – and the conflict in Southeast Asia not only grew, but hit home with the loss of a high school friend. To make matters worse, my best friend (and later best-man at my wedding) was shipped-off to Vietnam. He, too, was seriously injured, but, thank God, survived.

So, for those of us who lived through the turbulent 60s as teenagers, we were fortunate to have fun diversions – like The Beatles…and Tony C.