In 1995, MLB also had weird spring training. That worked out nicely for Red Sox (2024)

Until 1995, spring training had always been a happy time for baseball fans, a time to welcome back trusty veterans, a time to mull the fate of untested prospects decked out in comically high uniform numbers, and, yes, a time to conclude that this is going to be the year.

But then came the craziest spring training anyone had ever seen. (Not counting what may happen this time around, of course.) Oh, the 1995 edition of spring training kicked off with all the basics — batting practice, base-running drills, throwing programs, wiseass public address announcers who delight in pointing out that’s a balmy 78 Down Here and a chilly 26 Up There — and yet it looked more like tryouts for a sequel to the film “Major League” than the training regimen for the start of an actual major-league season.

Remember Mike Carista? Didn’t think so. The Saugus native had been a 14th-round selection by the Red Sox in the 1985 draft, and by 1990 he was in his sixth season in the Boston farm system when he suddenly walked out on Double-A New Britain. He had been a starting pitcher his whole life but now the organization was telling him he’d be of more value as a reliever. Carista said to hell with that and went home. He was released at the end of the season, his pro career over.

Nearly five years later — spring training, 1995 — he was invited back by the Red Sox as a so-called “replacement player,” with MLB and the players staring down each other in a work stoppage that started the previous August and wiped out the 1994 World Series. The summer before, Carista had pitched for Serra Club in the amateur Boston Park League, throwing against teams whose rosters included guys whose day jobs ranged from plumbing to accounting. But with big-league players still on strike and MLB resorting to dusting off old Rolodexes in pursuit of various castoffs, rejects and other former prospect/suspects, Carista signed what was put in front of him and headed to Fort Myers believing he had a chance to make the Sox Opening Day rotation.

“I worked out at BU to get in real baseball shape,” said Carista, now 53 and living in Canton, N.C. “I was up to 245 pounds, and I wanted to get down to 210-ish. I did that and I went to spring training like it was a big-league spring training.

“I was treated very well,” he said. “Just like big-league players, basically. The whole deal. Meal money, this, that. It was regular spring training. And then we began to play the original spring training schedule.”

He made some starts, he said. He was interviewed by Jerry Remy on NESN, he said. He was going to make a start in the Sox season-opening series in Minnesota, he said.

But it wasn’t really big-league baseball, said everyone else.

Finally, on April 2, with the Red Sox and other big-league teams days away from opening the season with replacement players, a deal was struck to end the strike.

“It was kind of odd,” Carista said. “We were, oh boy, we were about to start the regular season with replacement players and we were getting our itinerary and all that stuff to head to Minnesota. Everybody was excited.

“We went to the ballpark the day before, and that’s when (manager) Kevin Kennedy came in and got everybody together in the clubhouse and said, ‘Well, guys, the strike has ended.’ And everybody was really disappointed.”

The regulars returned. As for the replacement players, most of them, including Carista, were now the equivalent of game show contestants who didn’t get past the lightning round. And were thus sent home. A hastily arranged 12-game Grapefruit League schedule was worked out for the Red Sox — mostly against the Twins, who also train in Fort Myers — and then, finally, the Sox flew to Boston to begin a for-real 1994 Major League Baseball season. Against the Twins. (By Opening Day that year most Red Sox fans knew more about the Twins than actual Twins fans.)

Who could have predicted that such a crazy spring training would lead to such a crazy season for the Red Sox? And crazy in a good way.

This is where the current Sox should take note: Weird things can happen in unusual seasons, which MLB is heading into now after unveiling plans for a 60-game season that will begin later this month. Red Sox players are reporting to Fenway Park today to begin their “spring” training.

In 1995, the Sox had been a sub-.500 club for three straight seasons under manager Butch Hobson, and now, with Hobson out and Kevin Kennedy running the shop, the outlook wasn’t improved. The Sox opened the season with an expanded roster of 28 players, 21 of whom were not on the Opening Day roster a year earlier. Ace Roger Clemens was still in Florida, nursing a shoulder injury that would keep him out until June. And yet when the regular season came to an end it was the Red Sox in first place in the American League East by seven games over the second-place Yankees.

How did it happen?

It helped that several Sox hitters had career years. Slugging first baseman Mo Vaughn won his only MVP Award, hitting .300 with 39 home runs and 126 RBIs. Shortstop John Valentin hit .298 with 27 homers, 102 RBIs and a .399 on-base percentage.

It helped that Jose Canseco, though not the Bash Brother he’d been with the Oakland A’s and not yet the poster boy (and tattletale) of steroid use he would later become, hit .306 with 24 home runs

It helped that waiver-wire pickup Troy O’Leary, whose previous big-league experience consisted of parts of two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, hit .308 with 10 home runs.

It helped that Erik Hanson, a veteran right-hander who signed a one-year deal in April, won 15 games.

It helped that veteran reliever Stan Belinda, coming off an atrocious season with the Kansas City Royals, was 8-1 with a 3.10 ERA and 10 saves.

It helped that Clemens, who didn’t make his first start until June, still won 10 games.

And perhaps most surprising of all, it helped that knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, a playoff hero for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992 who by ’94 had become so discombobulated that he was back in the minors, was signed by Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette after he’d been released by the Bucs near the end of spring training.

Talk about good timing. The Pirates were in free fall and wouldn’t make another playoff appearance until 2013. Wakefield, 28 at the time, hopped in his car and drove down I-75 from the Pirates’ Bradenton spring training base to Fort Myers, not so much to talk with the Red Sox but to seek the tutelage of the famed knuckleballing Niekro brothers, Phil and Joe. They were coaching the Colorado Silver Bullets, a professional women’s barnstorming team that was training in Fort Myers — one of their pitchers was Gina Satriano, whose father, Tom Satriano, played for the Red Sox in 1969 and ’70 — but they found time to work with Wakefield. The Niekros studied his mechanics, looked for flaws, tweaked his knuckleball. Coming off a 1994 season with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons in which he had gone 5-15 with a 5.84 ERA, Wakefield was starting over.

The Sox then signed him, the idea being that he’d open the season at Triple-A Pawtucket.

“On the day I arrived at City of Palms Park, the Red Sox bus was pulling out of the parking lot,” Wakefield said. “They were headed to the airport to fly to Boston to open the season. I was trying to find my way around, who to report to and all that. Clemens was there, because he was hurt and wasn’t going to start the season on time. They told me to head down to the minor-league complex.”

He wasn’t in the minors for long. After working out in Fort Myers and then making four starts with the Pawsox, Wakefield then made history. Called up in late May while the Red Sox were on a West Coast trip, he started against the Angels and allowed just one run in seven innings in an easy 12-1 victory. He was then pressed into service in Oakland and on all of two days’ rest pitched 7 1/3 shutout innings in Boston’s 1-0 victory. Between June 29 and Aug. 13 he won 10 straight starts. By the time the season was over, his 16 wins led the staff.

We did say crazy, right? Crazy as in beginning spring training with replacement players. Crazy as in Duquette overhauling the roster on the fly, with the likes of O’Leary, Belinda, Wakefield and others being picked up in April. Crazy as in Wakefield working out with the coaches of a women’s team before signing with the Red Sox.

And crazy as in the Red Sox winning the division after practically nobody gave them a chance.

It may be the most unheralded good Red Sox team in history. The team was disrespected at the beginning, this because of replacement players and nothing in the way of expectations. To put it another way — and this should ring a bell, given the wrangling over how to play a shortened 2020 season in the face of the coronavirus pandemic — everybody was pissed off with Major League Baseball.

And then, in the end, the 1995 Red Sox were quickly forgotten after losing three straight to the Cleveland Indians in a best-of-five division series.

Mo Vaughn, who went 0-for-14 with seven strikeouts in the series, still feels terrible 25 years later.

“I always look back, we clinched the AL East with 10, 12 games to go,” Vaughn said. “And the reason why I remember that so well is that I had a mental letdown in the postseason. I wasn’t able to recharge when we got to the playoffs. We never got that edge back. I remember that vividly. And I always said the next time I got back there that I wouldn’t let that happen again.”

Vaughn kept his word. Though the Red Sox did not return to the postseason until 1998, when they were again eliminated by the Indians (this time in four games), Vaughn was 7-for 17 (.412) with two home runs and seven RBIs.

But he remains bullish about those crazy 1995 Red Sox. Though we can all agree Duquette did one of the best jobs of his career in terms of roster building — 53 different players suited up for the ’95 Red Sox — Vaughn points out that the contributions of Kennedy should not be forgotten. And by Vaughn’s way of thinking, those contributions began in spring training, as Kennedy was shifting his focus from replacement players to the real McCoy. (As well as the real Willie McGee, the former Gold Glove outfielder and batting champion with the St. Louis Cardinals. He hooked on with the Red Sox in June and hit .285 in 67 games.)

“In 1994, I was an established big leaguer,” Vaughn said. “Then came the strike and everything got shut down. So coming back in ’95, you’re back in spring training, and, to me, it almost felt like I had to start all over again as to establishing myself. But Kevin Kennedy was the new manager and he was the right manager for me at the time. He was saying, ‘We’re gonna go out, we’re gonna play, and we’re gonna win,’ and I needed to hear that at that exact time.”

Valentin remembers the beginning of spring training this way: “We didn’t think we were going to win the American League East. We were thinking, OK, let’s grind it out and see what happens. We didn’t play well in ’92, ’93 and ’94. But then the season started, and as we started to win games we’re saying, ‘Oh, we can compete with the best.’ You gain confidence and that starts to snowball.”

Plus, Valentin said, the 1995 Red Sox wanted to show their fans what real big-league baseball is all about.

“When you have replacement players and they’re looking to take your job, you’re coming out to show everyone that youare what they pay for,” he said.

It’s impossible to make a statistical argument for this, but the Red Sox may have profited by not getting caught up in petty grudges over the labor strife that had stopped the ’94 season cold and then got spring training off to a train-wreck start in ’95. Just weeks earlier, the Sox clubhouse at City of Palms Park had been filled with replacement players. Some of those replacement players were still-active Red Sox minor leaguers who had been nudged by management to report to the big-league clubhouse for spring training. And some of them, including outfielder Ron Mahay, were brought back to the big club after the regulars returned.

As to how Mahay wound up with the replacement players at the beginning of spring training, “The front office came down and started talking to players, asking things like, would you help the organization and so on,” he said. “A lot of the questions back then were, what’s going to happen if we don’thelp the organization? And the response I got was that it wasn’t guaranteed they were going to call you back if you don’t do this. When I heard that, I saw my dreams fly out the window.”

He was concerned, confused. And then he was a replacement player. He was only 23, but entering his fifth pro season. He hadn’t been hitting much. And so he “did a lot of thinking, a lot of soul searching. I talked to my parents, I talked with older guys that had big-league time, and, you know, it was something that I did. And I didn’t regret it. I knew there was going to be some kind of backlash with the players.”

It was an impossible situation. Whereas players such as Mike Carista had nothing to lose other than the beginning of the Boston Park League season, Mahay was an active Red Sox minor leaguer. If you don’t go, it’s in your head that management is going to bury you. If you do go, it’s in your head you’ll be ostracized by the veterans.

Framingham native Lou Merloni found himself in a similar situation. An infielder who was selected in the 10th round of the 1993 draft following a stellar career at Providence College, he had only two seasons of Single-A ball on his resume when he arrived for spring training in 1995.

“So my story was I was just a minor leaguer going to camp,” Merloni said. “And I showed up with the rest of the minor leaguers and they told us we were not going to be involved in (replacement games) unless we chose to. They’d already signed guys off the streets and they paid them some money to show up in big-league camp so it’s like, OK, we’re not going to be involved.”

But then the Red Sox asked one of their top prospects, shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, to visit big-league camp. Not to play, mind you. They just wanted to see him work out.

And then they called for Merloni.

“They said they wanted me to work out with Nomar because we had been playing together at short and second, and they wanted to keep us working out together,” he said. “But on the third or fourth day, I was in the lineup of a big-league game. And I walked in and I told Kevin Kennedy I’m not playing. I said ‘I’m not here to do this. I’m here to just work out.’ And basically the front-office people kind of told me they’ll take me out of the lineup today but I’m going to be in the lineup tomorrow. And if I refuse to play I’ll be released.

“I spent that night calling friends, calling family. We had a long discussion. And I viewed it as a minor leaguer who got called up for a big-league game. I told them I wasn’t going to sign anything. I sure as hell wasn’t gonna go to Boston, and I told them I didn’t view myself as part of this. So I played one game.”

In that one game, Merloni went 2-for-5 with two RBIs against the St. Louis Cardinals.

But the next day they put him in again and in a split-squad game against the Twins he had three hits. In that same game, pitcher Mike Carista, the former Sox farmhand who’d been signed out of the Boston Park League, allowed one run in four innings.

In the next game, according to a dot-dot-dot item in Globe baseball writer Nick Cafardo’s notebook, Merloni “fouled a ball off his leg but did not appear seriously hurt.” But Merloni did not play another spring training game with the big-league club. According to various newspaper accounts, he was among several Sox minor leaguers who refused to appear as replacement players in any more games.

“I kind of faked an injury with my quad,” Merloni said in his interview for this article. “A couple of days later they put a contract in front of us and said here, sign this and we’ll give you guys, I think it was 11 grand.

“And I refused to sign it. And I walked out and went back to my hotel room, not knowing if I just got released or not.”

Later that night, Merloni received a call from Bob Schaefer, the director of field operations for the Red Sox.

“Schaef told me to report to minor-league camp,” Merloni said. “I was ecstatic that I wasn’t released.”

Mahay, who was sent to the minor-league camp but then brought back to big-league camp after the regulars returned, said, “I guess I had opened some eyes.” If there was a blowout in the clubhouse when he walked in the door, it was never made public. What did make the papers was coverage of a conversation that veteran outfielder Mike Greenwell had with Mahay and infielder Randy Brown, another minor leaguer who’d been a replacement player and then brought back to big-league camp.

“They were put in a tough situation,” Greenwell told the Boston Herald after the meeting. “You have to be realistic about it. I feel for those guys a little bit. They’re in a bad situation. It’s like anything else. Time heals all wounds, but we haven’t had much time yet.”

Mahay recalls there was “definitely tension in the air” when he returned to big-league camp.

“Those guys had just come off their negotiations and emotions were still high,” he said. “And then you add me into the mix and there’s going to be more tension.

“But there was no nastiness from any player, to be honest.”

Mo Vaughn remembers it this way: “There was some tension, and as a veteran I understood exactly what the other veterans were feeling. But Mahay, he was a good kid. He was quiet, didn’t say too much. He walked into camp and he was like, this is what we’re going to do and he went out and did it.”

Mahay wound up with Triple-A Pawtucket. The Sox flew to Boston and began what would be a 144-game season by rolling to a 9-0 victory over the Twins.

And yet Mahay played for the 1995 Red Sox after all, making his major-league debut as Boston’s starting center fielder on May 21 and going 2-for-5 in a 12-10 loss to the Indians. He played in five games before returning to the minors.

“The way I look at it,” Vaughn said, “even though he was only with us a short time, the fact that he was there at all meant that we needed him, which meant he was important to us. As a player you just try to massage the situation and let it go and try to win.

“And whatever else happened that year, and how it all started with the replacement players and everything, we went out and won the East,” Vaughn said. “I was really proud of that. I’m still proud of that.”

His baseball dream over, Mike Carista returned to Boston. He has remained involved in baseball over the years, offering private pitching lessons in Canton, N.C. Having survived a cancer scare, he’d like to be a college coach.

“If there were things that I could have changed, I absolutely would have changed them,” he said. “But crossing the picket line was a no-brainer for me because it was a way back in for me.”

What he wouldhave changed, he said, is his decision to go home in 1990 rather than continue to work out of the bullpen at Double-A New Britain.

“I was a prospect heading my way to the big leagues,” he said. “I fought against them putting me in the bullpen. I think bad blood came between me and their management. And it made me look like I was a selfish kind of guy and I wasn’t a team player. Now looking back on it, I can see what they meant about that. I would have stayed there and pitched in the bullpen if I could have changed it.”

Mahay’s career took a surprising turn: After struggling as a hitter he reinvented himself as a pitcher in the Boston farm system and returned to the big leagues in 1997. He carved out a 14-season big-league career as a journeyman lefty reliever with the Sox, A’s, Marlins, Cubs, Rangers, Braves, Royals and, finally, in 2010, the Twins.

He made 514 big-league mound appearances, compiling a 27-12 record and 3.83 ERA. Mahay, who turned 49 on June 28, lives in Calabasas, Calif., and helps coach a high school baseball team.

Lou Merloni made it to the big leagues with the Red Sox in 1998 and, with his parents sitting in the stands, hit a home run in his first Fenway Park at-bat. He enjoyed a nine-year big-league career, most of it with the Red Sox, along with stints with the Padres, Indians and Angels. He has gone on to a successful media career with NBC Sports Boston and as part of WEEI’s afternoon drive show with Glenn Ordway and former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria.

Mahay and Merloni are among a group of former big-leaguers who have not been allowed to join the Major League Baseball Players Association because of their limited participation in replacement-player spring training games in 1995. Because of that, they never received licensing money during their playing careers but are eligible for their pensions and other retirement benefits.

The Red Sox 1996 media guide includes the team’s spring training statistics from 1995 — but only for the 12 games that were played after the strike ended.

The stats from the replacement-player games are not included. It’s as though they never happened.

(Top photo of, left to right, Roger Clemens, Mike Stanton, Stan Belinda, Tim Wakefield and Mike Maddux: Frank O’Brien / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)