Beaning Forever Altered Career of Conigliaro

Even the Boston Red Sox agreed, in the aftermath of a horrifying beaning, that it had been accidental.

Thirty-two years ago today, California Angel pitcher Jack Hamilton hit Red Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro in the left temple with a fastball.

Conigliaro was carried off the field on a stretcher with a broken cheekbone and a concussion.

“There was no reason for me to hit him,” Hamilton said later.

“We had two outs and all I was trying to do was throw a strike. I wasn’t even trying to brush him back. It was a high fastball. He may have frozen on the pitch.”

Conigliaro had been hitless in 20 at-bats and Hamilton said that might have been a factor.

“He’d been in a slump and it looked like he was crowding the plate and taking an extra long look at the pitch.”

Boston Manager Dick Williams sought to calm his players.

“There are no ill feelings,” he said. “We know Hamilton didn’t throw at him.”

Said plate umpire Bill Valentine: “It was a fastball that just ran in on Tony.”

The initial prognosis was that Conigliaro would be out three weeks. Instead, he was out more than a year.

He had 20 home runs and 67 runs batted in before the beaning and had been an All-Star game starter. Troubled with double vision, he sat out the rest of the 1967 season and all of 1968.

He had a 36-home run season for the Red Sox in 1970, but recurring vision difficulties and other health problems forced his retirement in 1971 while he was with the Angels, although he returned to play 21 games for Boston in 1975.

Conigliaro died at 45 in 1990.

Also on this date: In 1966, at Lincoln, Neb., Don Schollander, who had won four swimming gold medals at the 1964 Olympics, regained the world record in the 400-meter freestyle with a 4:11.6 clocking.