The great Tony Conigliaro saw his baseball career basically come to an end before I was born, but he is still a player whose story I know well.

To this day, Conigliaro is affectionately known as “Tony C” throughout New England and beyond, even though it has been more than 36 years since his untimely death at the age of 45.

If you say “Tony C” in any of the 50 states, there is a good chance that someone will know that you mean Conigliaro.

By the time the 1967 Boston Red Sox “Impossible Dream” season came around, the native of Revere, Massachusetts was already on the trajectory to be a Hall of Fame player. That season, Conigliaro, who began his Major League career at the age of 19 in 1964, became the youngest player to hit 100 home runs in his career.

Cooperstown was going to come calling for “Tony C.”

On the night of Aug. 18, 1967, however, everything changed. Conigliaro was hit in the face by a pitch from California Angles pitcher Jack Hamilton. Fans in Fenway Park that night are still haunted by the “very sick sound” the ball made as it smacked the young superstar in the face.

The outfielder was carried off the field on a stretcher. He sustained a linear fracture of the left cheekbone, a dislocated jaw and severe damage to his left retina. He was left with 20-300 vision and stabbing headaches.

Conigliaro missed the rest of the 1967 season and all the 1968 campaign. He came back and hit 20 home runs in 1969 before hitting 36 bombs in 1970. But he was never the same. He retired after a rough season with the Angels in 1971, and he saw a brief comeback with the Red Sox in 1975 last just 21 games.

That beanball effectively ended his career.

Even though I never watched Conigliaro play, I think about him every time I hear someone in the crowd at a baseball game yell “wear it” to a player who ducks out of the way of a pitch.

Coaches teach their players to get hit by pitches because they think it helps them win games. Teammates tease players when they duck out of getting hit by a pitch. Moms and dads tell their kids to toughen up and “take one for the team.”

This season, I even saw a coach pull a player from the game during his at bat because he ducked away from two pitches. The count was 3 balls, 2 strikes when the player was removed from the game in humiliating fashion.

That was wrong on like 9,000 levels.

So many coaches just do not seem to get it when it comes to beanballs. Getting on base is a good thing. It is one of the most important things in the game. But you should do it the right way.

This has been a fight I have been having with coaches for as long as I have been writing about sports. It bugs me more than another driver waiving for me to go at a four-way stop when it is his turn to go.

You are not a traffic cop, just drive.

We should not be asking anyone to get hit by a fast-moving baseball. In addition to fracturing cheekbones, they can break hands, fingers and shoulder blades. 

Plus, leaning into pitches is bush league, and it does not make the player or team better.

Even Morris Buttermaker knew it was wrong when he told Rudi Stein to lean into the pitch when the Bears were playing the Yankees in the championship game. He did it because he momentarily lost his moral compass while coaching kids.

Luckily, Buttermaker came to his senses, and the movie “The Bad News Bears” had a much better ending because of it.

I have been wary of the beanball since I played Pee Wee baseball for Jim Kraut Chevrolet in 1981. I was 7 years old, and opposing pitcher Billy Dunmire hit me in the head during what I believe was my very first at bat in organized baseball.

Now, I was already afraid of getting hit by the ball before Billy knocked my helmet off with a pitch. I already would have been one of the worst players on the Chico Bail Bonds Bears. After taking a pitch off the helmet, I was petrified of the ball, and that killed my baseball career before I let my lack of coordination and athletic ability ruin it first.

A healthy fear of getting hit by the ball is a good thing, but I was scarred for life from that hit that probably didn’t hurt as much as it scared me.

Granted, Billy didn’t throw as hard as Jack Hamilton. Neither do the pitchers in high school and American Legion baseball. But some of them throw pretty darn fast.

Many high school pitchers throw in the range of 80 mph, and that is more than enough to ruin your eyesight forever. Or worse.

Yes, there is a difference in turning your shoulder into a pitch and taking one off the face. But with a ball moving that fast, the difference between a shoulder and an eye socket can be a millisecond judgement.

That is not a chance that is worth taking to win a youth baseball game. It’s not a chance worth taking to win a World Series game.

And to state the obvious here, coaches should be teaching the players to get hits, not to get hit.

Yes, a high on-base percentage is great. But slugging percentage is important, too, and you cannot hit a double, triple or home run by leaning into a pitch.

It reminds me of when I coached my son’s age 7-8 baseball team. I knew that winning was not the most important thing. I figured if everyone has fun and the kids sign up to play baseball the next year, then I did a pretty good job.

I was always guided by the five rules of Little League: Have fun, have fun, have fun, have fun and get a treat.

I would tell the boys, “Your grandma didn’t come here to watch you walk. She wants to honk her horn because you got a hit, so swing the bat.”

One time I heard an opposing coach repeatedly yell to his kids to not swing. That is because he knew walking would lead to a team victory, and it did.

In 7-8 baseball, you could quite literally win a game without ever swinging the bat. That is because most pitchers that age are going to repeatedly throw four balls before they throw three strikes.

But what fun would that be? What are they players learning?

The same could be said for older players leaning into pitches. Sure, it is great to win. But it is much, much better to win the right way.

Everyone remembers the big hit. Nobody remembers the player who helped his team by taking the Ernie Pantusso approach and leaning into a pitch.

I don’t want to tell any coaches how to coach, and I am sure none would ever listen to me anyway. But I would be nice if some coaches started to think a little bit about the great Tony Conigliaro before they tell one of their players to “wear” a pitch.

We do not want to see another Hall of Fame career ended before it really began.

— Bill Foley, who can still hear the sound of that ball bouncing off his helmet in 1981, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.