After 65 years of continuous existence, the Boston Park League has been many things to many people. The only thing that it remains for all those who have played and the present players, is family.
Read The Boston Park League, by John Hinds, as appearing in Boston Red Sox Scorecard Magazine.
The Boston Park League, the nation’s oldest amateur baseball league, begins its 65th season tomorrow, and as usual, Milton resident and Mass. Envelope general manager John Kelliher will be part of the proceedings.
When Mass. Envelope won the league title last year, it marked Kelliher’s 11th Park League championship as either a manager or GM in a career that dates back to 1939, when he played for the old Hurley Club of Roxbury after graduating from Roxbury Memorial High.
“I’m retired from the MBTA now, so I’ve got more time to devote to baseball,” said the former Red Sox and Brooklyn Dodgers farmhand, “and I’m really looking forward to this season. Each spring, I kind of get rejuvenated because of baseball.” Read more
The Boston Park League has been on the brink several times during its sometimes stormy 52-year existence, but John Kelliher is one guy who never has feared that it would go over the edge.
Kelliher, the dean of league managers, always has been the ultimate optimist, fully confident that there are enough people who cared and that somehow the league would stay alive. And, despite some squeakers, so far he has been right.
“The Park League means so much to so many people that I can’t believe they would ever let it go down the drain,” Kelliher said. “There are so many men successful in business and the professions, who remember and appreciate their own pleasant years in the league, that they will pitch in and help out.”
Kelliher himself obviously is of that ilk. Except for three years of service during World War II, he has been affiliated with the league for 40 years, as player, manager, general-manager – and helpful recruiter of talent for other teams as well as for Mass. Envelope, his own ballclub. Read more
Mass. Envelope owns the Park League’s regular season baseball championship after its 11-0 romp over the Royals at Casey Field last night, but general manager John Kelliher termed it “only the beginning.” Read more
