Mike Nagy (#39)

Mike Nagy pitched in the big leagues for 6 seasons, mostly as a starter for the Red Sox in 1969 and 1970.

Nagy was signed by the Red Sox in 1966, and played 3 seasons in class-A ball before jumping to the majors to begin the 1969 season. As a 21-year-old rookie, Mike was 2nd on the staff in starts and innings pitched (behind Ray Culp), but had fewer strikeouts and more walks than the other 3 primary starters.

Nagy finished 2nd in the AL Rookie of the Year voting behind the Royals’ Lou Piniella, receiving 6 of the 24 1st place votes (to Piniella’s 9 votes).

Arm injuries affected him for the rest of his career. Mike slipped to 6-5 in 1970, and while he was the team’s #4 starter, he played a few games in the minors. He was back in triple-A for most of the ’71 and ’72 seasons, only pitching 12 games for Boston in 1971 and one in 1972.

Nagy was traded FOUR times in 1973: to the Cardinals in January, to the Rangers in March, back to the Cardinals in June (for pitcher Jim Bibby), and to the Astros in December. For all that traveling, he played only 9 games with the Cardinals, while spending most of the season with 2 AAA teams.

Mike pitched 9 games for the Astros in 1974 (his last major-league game coming in May), then spent the rest of 1974 and all of 1975 with their AAA team. He also played in Mexico from 1976 to 1979.

In 1977, Nagy started a still-operating real estate business in the Bronx.

Jerry Moses (#104)

Jerry Moses was a catcher for the Red Sox and several other teams. Since our “Hangin’ at the Bat Rack” team already has a catcher, and the DH is still 3 years off, let’s just say he is batting for the pitcher.

Moses was signed by Boston in 1964, and played in the minors for five seasons, while also playing 4 games with the Sox early in 1965, and 6 games in September 1968.

In 1969, Russ Gibson was the Sox’ #1 catcher. Moses started 6 straight games in mid-April, but when Boston acquired catcher Joe Azcue from the Indians on 4/19, Moses was relegated to 3rd-string catcher for the remainder of the season, even after Azcue was swapped to the Angels on 6/15 for C-3B Tom Satriano.

In 1970, Gibson was sold to the Giants 3 days before opening day, paving the way for Jerry to be the #1 catcher. He started 85 of the first 127 games (with Satriano catching the others), and made the AL all-star team. However, he did not play after August 28th.

After the 1970 season, Moses was included in the trade that sent outfielder Tony Conigliaro and pitcher Ray Jarvis to the Angels for 2nd baseman Doug Griffin, pitcher Ken Tatum, and outfielder Jarvis Tatum. (recap: that’s 1 guy named Jarvis, 1 guy named Tatum, and 1 guy named Jarvis Tatum.)

Moses played for 6 teams (Angels, Indians, Yankees, Tigers, Padres, White Sox) in the next 5 seasons, all as a backup. In his final season (1975) he only played in 15 games, the last coming on August 9th.

He was released by the White Sox on 9/11/1975.