The Pawtucket Red Sox organization has announced that owner Ben Mondor died at his home last night at the age of 85. In 1977 Ben Mondor took over a failing minor league baseball team and turned it completely around. In addition to this colossal achievement for which all Rhode Islanders will be eternally grateful, he was active in many philanthropic endeavors and was just one of the all-time good guys. What a legacy. (ProJo)
I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Mondor at the State House reception for the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth of the Year back in May. He was clearly in poor health, but made a stirring speech about the importance of the Clubs and their impact on local youth, as he accepted an award for his service to the community.
Add me to the chorus of RI’ers who are grateful to Ben’s tremendous contribution to our Little State.
As a Pawtucket native, I’ve been very grateful to Ben Mondor for bringing McCoy back to life. It really is a treasure. Next summer I am really going to miss seeing him around the ballpark. We should all be so lucky as to leave this world having made so many people that happy. Nice work, Ben!
It’s inconceivable to imagine life without McCoy. I haven’t been to Fenway in ages. I remember taking two young kids to their first ballgame there. Unfortunately it was April and freezing. It was a terrible game and normally I would have left, but the kids didn’t know it was a terrible game. A nearby stranger asked us to watch her kid and retrieved a blanket from her car which we all huddled under. By the 7th inning there were about 10 people left and no score, when over the PA Ben Mondor invited everybody to the concessions for free hot dogs and drinks! When the visiting team finally scored a run in the tenth, everybody cheered wildly and ran to their cars.
Hats Off to Ben Mondor!
While I never met him, I have a lot of respect for Ben Mondor. As a kid I was lucky enough to work for the Richmond Braves, the Richmond, Virginia AAA Minor League affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. I was the Bat-Boy for the visiting teams in Richmond, and I always liked the Pawtucket people when they came through. I also always wondered what this Pawtucket place was all about, and having moved to Rhode Island in 1993, I now know first-hand. I try to spend as much time at McCoy as I can – I love it ther, and Ben Mondor gets a lot of credit for keeping the team alive in Pawtucket.
My Richmond childhood baseball memories are still with me, but they have recently been somewhat diminished because the Richmond Braves are no longer in Richmond. Some folks blame the city or Richmond, some the team – but after seeing how Mondor did everything right to keep the Pawsox in Pawtucket, I believe my old city and team blew it big time. At issue was the need for a new stadium in Richmond, which made me scratch my head a bit – McCoy Stadium was built in the early 1940s, and with a few smart renovations, there is now no reason it can’t be home to the Pawsox for many years to come, but the Diamond (where the Richmond Braves played) was built in the mid-1980s and was already deemed inadequate for the team to continue to play there. This is complete bull-roar! The news of the Braves leaving Richmond bothered me a bit at the time, but now the Pawsox are my team, so it was your loss and not mine, Richmond.
If we had lost our beloved team in Pawtucket a few years back, I would have lost one of my favorite things about living in Rhode Island – thank you Ben Mondor, and Rest In Peace up there in Baseball Heaven!