With Labor Day weekend signaling the imminent end of summer days, we’re trying to keep the feeling of warm July nights going with this week’s Flashback Friday – a look 20 years ago by then-Boston Herald sportswriter Mark Murphy at efforts to bring minor league baseball to cities across the state. It’s a great dive into the more unglamorous precincts of America’s pastime but features some well-known names from Fenway Park lore – former Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman and pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, who both had roles in minor league efforts here after their Major League days were done.

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– CommonWealth Beacon Staff

The Lowell Spinners at LeLacheur Park (Photo by Mark Morelli)

Flashback Friday: Rooting for the home team

By MARK MURPHY

In this sport, even the soil, marbled with red clay, is sacred. And that’s just how Rich Gedman treats it as he wields a wooden rake as broad as his bullish shoulders, grading the dirt in circular strokes and erasing the divots and scuff marks around home plate. His strokes fan out symmetrically in a network of small grooves. He’s so meticulous, Gedman could be brushing a fresco on the wall of a Tuscan chapel. He could be smoothing out the ceremonial last five yards of cement on the Big Dig. 

It’s a technique Gedman may have picked up from the Fenway Park grounds crew during his 10 seasons as catcher for the Red Sox. And it’s come in handy since he became manager of the Worcester Tornadoes early this year for the team’s first season. That’s because, when workouts at the practice field at Quinsigamond Community College are over, Gedman becomes chief groundskeeper. 

“This is the grass roots,” says Gedman, in the same hesitant, reflective voice that earned him a reputation as an introspective sort during his 13-season major-league career. “I have some help, though,” he adds, nodding in the direction of an assistant coach who is watering the pitcher’s mound. “It’s not bad.” 

Humble surroundings, to be sure, but also, for the Worcester native, a proud return. The five businessmen who pooled resources to bring a minor-league baseball team to Worcester are banking an initial investment of approximately $7 million on this soft-spoken manager’s hometown appeal. So far, they have not been disappointed.

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