WORCESTER—The Worester Red Sox Hall of Fame Class of 2025 is not the Hall’s first class, but it includes some first class names and some firsts, as well.
This year’s induction ceremonies were held indoors on a rainy Wednesday night, the Polar Park infield covered by a tarp, as a crowd in the DCU Club celebrated the achievements of J.P. Ricciardi, Janet Marie Smith and Jarren Duran. Smith is the Hall’s first woman inductee, and Duran is its first active player.
The Class of ’25 joins last year’s inaugural set of inductees. They included WooSox principal owner, the late Larry Lucchino; former Worcester city manager Ed Augustus and Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame member and current WooSox batting coach Rich Gedman.
Their monuments were unveiled remotely, what with the rain cascading down. They are lined up along Lucchino Lane, behind the left field foul pole, with the Class of 2024.
Ricciardi, a Worcester native and longtime resident of West Boylston, had the largest contingent on hand. It included his wife Diane; sons Dante and Mariano; brother Steve and sister Mary. He was joined onstage by Gedman, a teammate on the St. Peter-Marian team that won a state championship in 1977.
Coincidentally, perhaps supernaturally, the teammates were born on the same day, Sept. 26, 1959.
“I’m a Worcester guy. Richie was probably a Billy Riley home run from here,” Ricciardi said, recalling a teammate from that ’77 champion. “I’m probably a Richie Gedman home run from here. You never forget where you’re from.”
Ricciardi’s work life has been baseball, although he said he has never really worked a day in his life.
“One of my uncles told me I thought manual labor was a shortstop,” he said.
Ricciardi played minor league baseball, then became a scout and advanced through the ranks. He is best known throughout the game as the Blue Jays general manager from 2002-2009 but also worked in the front office for the Athletics, Mets and Giants.
Last season, Ricciardi got a call from WooSox senior vice-president of communications Bill Wanless asking if he might be interested in joining the team’s broadcast crew as an analyst.
He has been doing that ever since and has become a fan favorite with his insight and candor.
While baseball is how Ricciardi has made his living, it has not been his whole life. Recalling something some perspective from his wife, Ricciardi said,
“Baseball, it’s not who you are,” he added. “It’s something that you do. I think, in the grand scheme of things I’m proud to have been in baseball, I’m proud that I’ve had the career I’ve had. I’m proud to have had the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve had the opportunity to meet, the people I’ve been involved with.
“But at the end what it really comes down to for me is to walk with Jesus; family and your friends, and just having good character because in the end that’s all you really have.”
The WooSox might exist, but Polar Park as we know it would not exist without the work of Smith. The Worcester ballpark was the final collaboration of her and Larry Lucchino, one that began with the back-to-the-future construction of Camden Yards in Baltimore.
It ended the era of the round, soulless, multi-use stadia that had dominated baseball since the 1960s. Smith and Lucchino designed a Polar Park that was squeezed into a desolate hill off Madison Street and is still regarded as one of the best ballparks in minor league baseball.
Along the way, Smith came to know the city as more than just a construction site.
“To be able to take a former industrial site and with almost one fell swoop create this, give it new life, was something really amazing,” she said.
“This really is a wonderfully unique city. One of the things is….how much you have to work with. From the heart, the heart of the commonwealth, the home of the valentine, the smiley ball, Coney Island hot dogs, Creative Cakes, the Sherwood Diner.
“There are so many things that we’ve been able to do here that makes it special, so unique.”
Smith wonders, in hindsight, if their vision for Polar Park was not bold enough.
“I love the way the Canal District has grown up,” she said, “and all the residential buildings. I don’t think I ever could have imagined this scale of develoment happening so quickly. It’s really a testament to the strength of Worcester.”
Duran was with the Boston Red Sox in New York Wednesday night. He is the first former WooSox player to be inducted. He is not just the first WooSox player to enter the Hall of Fame. He is the first WooSox player, period.
Duran was Worcester’s leadoff batter on May 4, 2021 when the team made its debut in Trenton, Penn. The WooSox played Buffalo there as the Blue Jays were using their home field during Covid restrictions. Duran swung at the first pitch in team history and fouled it over the roof; the ball was never found.
He eventually was called out on strikes.
WooSox manager Chad Tracy, who had Duran on the roster for parts of the 2022 and ’23 seasons, spoke of his experiences with the oufielder
“He is one of the most gifted athletes I have ever coached,” Tracy said. “The speed and athleticism that he possesses was so obviously big league caliber from the very first moment I saw him.
“He can electrify a crowd by turning a routine single into a doble, turnig a double into a triple. He has the ability to steal home plate.…all the things we get to see him do now on televison, on the national stage, we got to see on our stage first, here.”
Duran was the Most Valuable Player in the 2024 All-Star Game. That was part of a memorable season in which he played 160 games and reached double figures in doubles (48), triples (14), home runs (21) and stolen bases (20).
All of that is a long way from the first foul ball in Worcester Red Sox history.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
