Just In: Boston Legend Reaveals He almost returned to baseball after Celtics traded him, and other discoveries from a weekend at the Hall of Fame

“Bet you didn’t know that Danny Ainge called me about coming back to baseball after Red traded him,” Gillick said. “I

thought it was going to happen.”

“I considered it,” Ainge said Sunday over the phone from Utah. “I was intrigued because I really thought I could have

succeeded in baseball.”

Ainge, of course, wound up playing seven more NBA seasons and came back to the Celtics as basketball boss in 2003,

delivering the franchise’s 17th banner in 2008, then building most of the Green Team we see today.

“My memory is that the Jays called me and offered me a chance to come back as a fourth outfielder behind George Bell,

Jesse Barfield, and Lloyd Moseby. They had a really good team, with a good pitching staff.

(The ‘89 Jays won the American League East.)

“I was flattered and interested. I talked to my wife about it and just decided that after eight years it was better to stay with

the NBA.”

He played every position other than pitcher, catcher, and first base. Ainge was only 30 in 1989, and had he returned to the

Jays, he might have been around for multiple playoff runs and Toronto’s back-to-back World Series wins in 1992 and 1993.

▪ Jim Rice, David Ortiz, and Wade Boggs were in Cooperstown, but Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Pedro Martinez, and

Dennis Eckersley did not make it to the Fred McGriff/Scott Rolen induction ceremony. Wade says he’s busy looking after his

nine grandchildren in Florida.

▪ Several sluggers, including the likes of Eddie Murray and Ken Griffey Jr., believe they could have pulled off the Shohei

Ohtani hitting/pitching double (not necessarily at the same level), but noted that American players are never allowed to

proceed with both skill sets once they are drafted. They are forced to choose between pitching and hitting.

“My brother Kemer [Ken Brett’s nickname] was great at both,” noted George Brett. “But the Red Sox made him a pitcher so

he never had that much chance to hit.”

The late Ken Brett pitched for the Sox in the ‘67 World Series less than a month after turning 19. In his 14-year pitching

career, Ken Brett batted .262 with 10 homers in 347 at-bats and was used as a pinch hitter 16 times, managing three hits and

a walk.

▪ George Brett, now a Royals official whose golf score was 72 in Cooperstown Saturday, had thoughts on Adalberto Mondesi,

the 27-year-old former Royals shortstop who was shipped to Boston for Josh Taylor in January. Mondesi was a rising star in

the Kansas City system, never achieved greatness, then tore his left ACL in April of 2022.

“He had the potential to be about as good as I ever saw,’’ said Brett. “But we could never find him. Didn’t want to rehab here.

Had to rehab in the Dominican Republic. What’s up with that?”

The Red Sox are paying the former KC Mystery Man $3 million.

▪ Sitting at breakfast with Johnny Bench Sunday, it dawned on me that Bench might be the only ballplayer universally

accepted as the greatest ever at his position (third baseman Mike Schmidt also may have a case). There have been a billion

catchers over the last 150 years. Every baseball game has a catcher, and Bench is ranked the best.

“It’s nice,” Bench said softly. “But what does it get you? I mean, I wait in line for popcorn at the movies like everybody else. I

make my own pancakes. I tell my kids to clean up the room so that the hotel staff doesn’t have to pick up their mess.

“I mean, it’s nice to hear that and all, but I always think I could have had a little better career.”

▪ Randy Johnson is enjoying a successful second life as a photographer, and his “Storytelling with Photographs” exhibit is

featured at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown. Johnson made contact with two-time Pulitzer-winning Globe

photographer Stan Grossfeld when the two were in Cooperstown in 2016.

“Photography is something I’m really excited about, and the museum has done a great job with this exhibit,” said Johnson.

“I’ve had unique opportunities through my baseball connections and been able to capture the beauty of African safaris, plus

things like motorsports and concert photography.”

▪ Gillick was a scout for Houston before his Toronto career and remembers an unusual high school player who was touted as

a switch hitter back in the 1960s: “I saw one of the kid’s games and noticed he hit righty against a righthanded pitcher, so I

talked to the kid about it and he told me he batted righty against righties and lefty against lefties. We signed him anyway, but

he never moved up very far.”

▪ More minor league minutiae: Former Rays PR boss Rick Vaughn works as an official scorer in the Florida State League and

Florida Complex League and reports these oddities: “I had one game in which the starting pitcher for both teams was

‘Rodriguez’ and the starting catcher for both teams was ‘Duran.’ Then I had a game last week with an inning in which two

runs were scored without an official at-bat. We had three walks, two sac flies, and a caught stealing!”

▪ Vaughn was PR director of the Orioles in the 1980s and reminded Murray of the unusual holdup when Murray was traded

to the Dodgers at the 1988 Winter Meetings in Atlanta. “The deal was halted for almost an hour because everybody got stuck

in a glass elevator at the Atlanta hotel where they were staying. Tommy Lasorda was in there and our manager, Frank

Robinson. There were about 19 of us and there wasn’t even enough room for guys to take off their sportcoats.”

▪ Lee Smith says he’s going to be in the Boston area this week and would love to come to the Fenway Legends Suite if the Sox

reach out to him.

▪ The estimable John Lowe was the recipient of the BBWAA’s Career Excellence Award — formerly won by the Globe’s Peter

Gammons, Larry Whiteside, and Nick Cafardo. Lowe was a card-carrying member of “Gammons Youth,” a 1970s-’80s

brigade of young baseball writers inspired by the Globe’s hardball scribe.

A BBWAA Mozart, Lowe covered the Angels and Dodgers for the Los Angeles Daily News while he was still a student at USC,

taking midterms while covering the Dodgers on the road in the 1981 postseason. After a stint in Philadelphia, where he

invented the “quality start” metric, Lowe covered the Tigers for the Detroit Free Press for three decades. On Wednesday,

he’ll get his first look at Polar Park in Worcester.

▪ The Hall’s Saturday Awards Ceremony is held off-campus about 10 miles from HOF headquarters, which makes it a bit of

an effort for Cooperstown legends to attend. Those who opted to pay homage to Lowe, Cubs broadcaster Pat Hughes, and

Buck O’Neil Award recipient Gary Erskine (standing in for his 96-year-old dad, Carl Erskine) included Jack Morris, Alan

Trammell, George Brett, Robin Yount, Whitey Herzog, Ryne Sandberg, and Pat Gillick.