There is some evidence that baseball as we know it was first played in Upton, just a little east of here, so the Baseball Hall of Fame might just as well be here.
Wishful thinking, for sure. If our city can’t be where the Ruth, Williams, Paige and Aaron plaques reside it can have a Cooperstown feel on occasion. One such occasion was Thursday night.
The WooSox Hall of Fame inducted its third class at Polar Park then and there and the event definitely had a major league feel. It had major league players, major league managers, major league executives and assorted other big league contributors on hand.
Peter Freund, essentially the WooSox owner as CEO of Diamond Baseball Holdings, had a front row seat as well.
Congratulations to the team’s vice-president of communications, and Hall of Fame head honcho, Bill Wanless for putting together one of the most memorable events in franchise history.
The ceremony was televised under a perfect summer sky. It featured the manager of the hottest team in the major leagues, Chad Tracy — the 15-game winning streak was a welcome surprise — the late Gene Zabinski, the late Mark Fidrych and Dr. Charles Steinberg comprised the Class of 2026.
The WooSox Hall of Fame monuments out past the left field foul pole now number 10 with the latest additions.
The late Larry Lucchino, Ed Augustus Jr., Rich Gedman, Janet Marie Smith, Jarren Duran and J.P. Ricciardi were inducted in 2024 and 2025. Four of the five living members were at the ceremony. Duran is an active player with the Boston Red Sox.
Tracy was elected even before taking over from Alex Cora in Boston.
Steinberg is celebrating his 50th year in professional baseball and has been team president since it moved here for the 2021 season. Fidrych was American League Rookie of the Year in 1976 and Zabinski was the author of the marketing campaign that had local residents send more than 10,000 postcards to Pawtucket suggesting that the Canal District would be a great home for the PawSox if they decided to leave Rhode Island.
Which they did.
Zabinski helped get a state-of-the-art ballpark built but was not a state-of-the-art person. Postcards? How were they going to be delivered, by the pony express?
He was represented at the podium by his widow, Donna Decoteau. She was an equal partner in the postcard campaign right down to helping correct the initial batch of cards that were misaddressed to the team in Providence, not Pawtucket.
They were undeterred. The boxes and boxes of postcards sent to McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket were a tangible reminder of just how much this city wanted Boston’s Triple-A affiliate to move north.
“Gene wasn’t a perfect man,” Decoteau said, “and I’m not sure exactly where he is right now because of that. Maybe he’s looking up at us, or looking down.
“Wherever he is, he’s astonished. He could never have in his wildest dreams be expecting to be in the WooSox Hall of Fame.”
Fidrych grew up in Northborough. He pitched for Algonquin Regional, then Worcester Academy before being drafted by the Tigers. Fidrych’s life was too short. So was his baseball career. In 1976 and into 1977, though, he was the most electrifying figure in baseball as he talked to the baseball, did repairs on pitching mounds and literally jumped for joy when things went right.
Before his career was detoured by arm issues, he was American League Rookie of the Year in ’76 and an All-Star both seasons. His renown followed him through minor league comeback attempts. On July 1, 1982 he pitched against Yankees star Dave Righetti, the 1981 Rookie of the Year who had been demoted to Columbus.
Fidrych was the winner before a record crowd of 9,389 at McCoy Stadium.
His coach at Algonquin was Jack Wallace, who told fans at the Hall ceremony that Fidrych was, “One of the most beloved figures the game has ever known. Mark’s infectious enthusiasm, boundless energy and genuine love for the game made baseball fans all fall in love with baseball all over again.
“He wasn’t trying to put on a show. He was simply being himself.”
Steinberg is a dentist, but getting him to relay stories about his 50 years in the game is not like pulling teeth. Before going to dental school, he went to baseball school under Professor Earl Weaver, the Orioles manager who has a plaque in Cooperstown.
Neither Weaver nor Steinberg were analytical nerds but Weaver highly valued the statistics and trends that Steinberg, a baseball intern at the start, assembled in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
Steinberg’s career in baseball has been closely aligned with Lucchino and he made the move from Pawtucket to Polar Park along with Lucchino and the team. The WooSox president was introduced by longtime friend Mike Barnicle, born in Worcester and a veteran of decades as a columnist and television commentator.
“It’s pretty overwhelming, but it is the greatest of honors to go into the WooSox Hall of Fame with those who are accompanying me,” Steinberg said.
His dad was an orthodontist so Steinberg continued in the family tradition, but not for very long. He never regretted the career change and, as he related the story, neither did his father.
