RIP: Red Sox Generational Hero, a three-time cancer survivor, passed away from congenital heart failure early on Tuesday.
Boston — Larry Lucchino has away. He was the driving force behind baseball’s retro ballpark revolution and the Boston Red Sox’s journey from infamous losers to World Series winners. He was 78 years old.
Lucchino, a three-time cancer survivor, passed away from congenital heart failure early on Tuesday. His family and the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox, where he had most recently served as the team’s principal owner and chairman, announced his passing. This was the final endeavor in a career that was also connected to three big league baseball teams and one NFL team.
“Larry leaves behind a giant baseball legacy full of historic accomplishments with three different organizations,” stated Theo Epstein, who worked under Lucchino in Boston, San Diego, and Baltimore. The latter was the youngest general manager in baseball history at the time. “With his work ethic, vision, competition, and bravery, Larry established an enduring example for me and many of my best baseball buddies, giving us our start. He will be mourned for his significant influence on baseball and the game itself.
Before Tuesday’s WooSox home opener at Polar Park, Lucchino was honored with a minute of silence. He was known as “the baby of his ballpark family” and his fifth and last ballpark project. Additionally, Lucchino received recognition before to the Oakland Red Sox game.
Before their game against the St. Louis Cardinals at San Diego’s Petco Park, the Padres paid tribute to Lucchino with a minute of silence. A photo of Lucchino hoisting the 1998 NL championship trophy during a procession through downtown a few days after the Padres were swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series was displayed on the videoboard before it went black.
Born in Pittsburgh and a member of the Princeton basketball team that made it to the NCAA Final Four in 1965 under the leadership of future U.S. Senator and basketball Hall of Famer Bill Bradley, Lucchino later attended Yale Law School and served on the House Judiciary Committee that looked into the Watergate affair. He soon found himself working on the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington NFL club, now known as the Commanders, both owned by Washington lawyer Edward Bennett Williams.
As president of the Orioles, Lucchino spearheaded the push to replace Memorial Stadium with an old-fashioned ballpark in the downtown area, putting an end to the trend of large, generic stadiums encircled by parking lots. The Padres, for which Lucchino was president and CEO, would later build a new ballpark once Camden Yards became a trend-setter.
Lucchino, the right-hand man of Padres owner John Moores, spearheaded the effort to get the team to leave the outdated Qualcomm Stadium, which they shared with the NFL’s Chargers, and move to Petco Park, another downtown stadium. The Padres won the NL West in 1996 and the NL pennant in 1998, ending a 14-year postseason drought.
Lucchino’s next destination was in Boston, helping to build the new ownership group led by John Henry and Tom Werner that acquired the team in 2002. Their choice to refurbish Fenway Park rather than replace it — breaking another trend — protected one of baseball’s gems, which will start its 113th season on April 9.
As the WooSox got ready to move into their new stadium in 2021, Lucchino told The Associated Press, “We didn’t know that we were going to ignite a revolution in ballpark architecture.” “We just wanted to build a nice little ballpark.”
