It was a miracle Leo Keily was even alive, much less a big league pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. When he was five years old, he was run over twice by an ice truck in his hometown of Hoboken, NJ. The truck smashed his pelvis and both his legs. Doctors feared he might never walk again, but the youngster was out of the hospital within a month.

Leo joined the Red Sox pitching staff in 1951 as a 21-year-old starter. He went 7-7 in his rookie season with an impressive 3.34 ERA and then went into the military. In 1953, he became the first Major League ballplayer to play in Japan’s professional league and won all six of his Asian decisions. The following year he was back in Beantown. After he went 5-8 as a starter in 1954, the Red Sox moved him to the bullpen. After a good first season as a reliever in ’55, Keily hit a rough patch the following year and couldn’t seem to get anybody out and Boston optioned him down to the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League. It was with the Seals that Keily accomplished something very unusual in 1957. He led the PCL League that year with 21 victories while making just three starts. His 20 wins in relief remain a PCL record. That performance earned him a return trip to Boston and he responded with his best season in the Majors in 1958 when he went 5-2 with 12 saves. After one more season with the Red Sox, Keily was traded to the Indians. His career record as a Red Sox was 25-25 with 28 saves.

I faintly remember being confused about the trade. Just before Opening Day of the 1986 baseball season, the Yankees and Red Sox exchanged DH’s. New York sent Don Baylor to Boston for Mike Easler. Later on, I learned that Baylor had demanded to be traded because Lou Piniella, the Yankee Skipper at the time had announced he intended to platoon him with Ken Griffey during the ’86 season. As is the case still today, trades between the arch-rival franchises were not frequent occurrences. In fact the Easler for Baylor deal was the first trade between the two teams since New York got Sparky Lyle from Boston in exchange for Danny Cater fourteen seasons earlier. Red Sox fans could only hope that this deal would not end up being as one-sided in favor of the Yankees as that one was. It didn’t.

The Red Sox had actually acquired Easler a first time in October of 1998 when they purchased him from the Pirates. Then two weeks before 1999 season was about to begin, they traded the native of Cleveland back to Pittsburgh for two prospects and cash. He became an All Star for the Pirates and in 1984, Boston reacquired Easler for pitcher John Tudor.

In his first season in Beantown in 1984, Easler belted 27 home runs for Boston, drove in 91 and averaged .313. Those numbers all decreased the following year and when the Yankees made Baylor available, the Red Sox front office saw the opportunity to replace Easler with a right handed pull hitter who could take good advantage of Fenway’s Green Monster. There was also a lot to like about Easler in pinstripes. He was a bonafide three-hundred hitter who’s nickname was “Hit Man.” He was a left-handed hitter with good pop in his bat giving him the potential of perhaps 25-to-30 home runs per season in New York aided by Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch. Easler would be joining a Yankee lineup that included superstars Don Mattingly, Ricky Henderson and Dave Winfield. There would be lots of protection surrounding him in the batting order which also meant less pressure to produce in every at bat. I fully expected that Yankee team to win their Division.

They came close, winning 90 games but Boston, with plenty of help from Baylor (31 HRs and 94 RBIs) won 95 and ended up in the World Series. Easler hit .302 for New York but he managed just 14 home runs and 78 RBIs. The Yankees traded Easler to the Phillies for pitcher Charles Hudson, that December and then got him back in another trade the following June. He played his final 65 big league games in Pinstripes during that 1987 season and then gave Japanese ball a try. During his 14 season career in the Majors, Easler hit .293.

The last Boston Red Sox team to win a World Series during the 20th century was the 1918 squad. Their starting rotation consisted of Carl Mays, “Sad” Sam Jones, Babe Ruth and today’s Pinstripe Birthday celebrant, Bullet Joe Bush. By 1922, three of the four were pitching for the Yankees and the fourth was on his way to becoming New York’s and all of baseball’s most famous home-run hitter of all time.

Before Bush got to Boston in 1918, he had already pitched five seasons with the A’s. He made quite a splash as a 20-year-old when he beat the heavily favored New York Giants in Game 3 of the 1913 World Series. Bush went 46-39 during his four seasons in Boston. His best year for the Red Sox was his last one, when he went 16-9 for the 1921 squad. In December of 1921, Boston owner Harry Frazee sent Bush, Jones and Everett Scott, his starting shortstop to New York for Roger Peckinpaugh, Rip Collins, Jack Quinn, Bill Piercy and $100,000. Bush then went 26-7 for the 1922 Yankees and 19-15 the following year. He kept pitching until 1928 when he ended his seventeen-season big league career with a 196-184 record.

Nicknamed “Indian Bob” because he was half Cherokee, Johnson was one of Baseball’s upper tier outfielders from 1933 until he retired in 1945. He spent most of his career with the Athletics, topping the .300 mark in average four times with Philadelphia. He also drove in 100 runs for seven consecutive seasons and exceeded the 20 home run mark in each of his first nine years in the big leagues.  When he slumped to 13 home runs and 80 RBIs during the 1942 season, the A’s traded him to the Senators. He did even worse in Washington the following year and was sold to the Red Sox after the ’43 season. Playing in Beantown seemed to rejuvenate Johnson as he led Boston with 106 RBIs in 1944 and hit a robust .324. But he was 38 years old by then and Father Time simply caught up with him. He managed to hit .280 in 1945 and drive in a respectable 74 runs but with Boston’s regulars all returning from military service, the Red Sox released Johnson that December. The Pryor, Oklahoma native wasn’t ready to quit just yet and continued playing minor league ball until he was 45. During his 13 seasons in the big leagues he hit 288 home runs, drove in 1,239 and averaged .296. His brother Roy was also a big league outfielder for ten seasons, who started for the Red Sox from 1932 until 1935. Roy Johnson matched his brother’s .296 lifetime batting average.