Remembering Red Sox Hall of Famer Mike Greenwell

10/10/2025 11:00 PM

Ron Vesely. Getty Images.

Boston Herald - Mike Greenwell, who spent his entire 12-year major league career in the Red Sox outfield, died this week. He was 62.
Greenwell announced in August that he had been diagnosed with medullary thyroid cancer. He did so on Gulf Coast News, the local station in Florida’s Lee County, where he had served as county commissioner since 2022 and where the Red Sox make their spring training home in Fort Myers.
Drafted by Boston in the third round in 1982, Greenwell debuted with the ’85 Red Sox and had the unenviable task of succeeding Hall of Fame outfielder Jim Rice in left field. ‘The Gator’ rose to the challenge with aplomb, hitting .303 with a .831 OPS, 1,400 hits (275 doubles, 38 triples, 130 home runs), 657 runs and 726 RBI over 1,269 career games. Perhaps most impressive, especially when viewed through the lens of today’s swing-for-the-fences style of hitting, were his 460 walks, which far eclipsed his 364 strikeouts.
“He was a great teammate and an even better person,” said Bob Stanley, Greenwell’s teammate from 1985-89. “He had big shoes to fill in left field, and he did a damn good job. He played hard and never forgot where he came from – Fort Myers. Just a great guy. We’ll all miss him.”
Greenwell’s first full season was ’87, when he played 125 games and finished fourth in American League Rookie of the Year voting. Back-to-back All-Star selections followed, as well as his only Silver Slugger Award and a second-place finish to future teammate Jose Canseco for AL MVP in ’88.
Statistically, Greenwell was one of the most reliable hitters in franchise history. He remains top-30 in several metrics, including career Wins Above Replacement (both Position Player and Offensive), on-base and slugging percentages, walks, and stolen bases, and top-20 in hits and extra-base hits, runs, RBI, total bases, sacrifice flies, runs created, and Win Probability Added (WPA). He and Bill Mueller are tied 15th-best batting average, and Greenwell is tied with JD Martinez for 25th in Red Sox home runs. Greenwell played the 14th-most Red Sox games, and ranked even higher before David Ortiz, Jason Varitek, and Dustin Pedroia came along soon after. Only six Red Sox players were ever hit by more pitches.

A funny thing happened when writing this blog. I went into the Getty archives to find a picture to buy and use as a thumbnail- as we bloggers do- and scrolled and scrolled waiting for the perfect one to jump out at me.

To be honest, the article I linked to above in The Herald had a freaking awesome picture of Greenwell seated atop a Boston Police Horse on the field at Fenway in September 1995, after the Red Sox clinched the American League East Championship that I really wanted to use. But I couldn't find it anywhere. Alas, so I kept scrolling, and I noticed that there were A LOT of pictures of Greenwell smiling. Like a ridiculous amount. Laughing with teammates, smiling on the field. Hustling off the field after a third out, grinning ear to ear. Stepping out of the batter's box and smiling. It caught me by surprise because you rarely see that today. Not just in baseball. Or from any athlete in any sport. But in life in general.

Who could you name that you see on the job, around work, who's always smiling?

I'm not saying those people don't exist. They do. They're just a few and far between. And they're always the fucking best. They're always everybody's favorite, and everybody always has nothing but good things to say about them.

It appears Mike Greenwell was definitely one of those types-

“He was a great teammate and an even better person,” right-handed pitcher Bob Stanley said. “He had big shoes to fill in left field, and he did a damn good job. He played hard and never forgot where he came from — Fort Myers. Just a great guy. We’ll all miss him.”

“Mike was a wonderful ballplayer who always played hard,” said Dwight Evans, Greenwell’s teammate from 1985-91. “He was deeply involved in the Fort Myers community and gave so much of himself to others. You always wanted to be around him — I truly enjoyed my time with him. He was a gamer in every sense of the word, and he will be deeply missed.”

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I remembered Mike Greenwell's career with the Red Sox vividly. I was too young. But I remember the tail end of it, and he was exactly what Dwight Evans said: "a gamer". Guy played his ass off- running into the wall, sliding hard, crowding the plate, and getting drilled on a regular basis. He was a ballplayer's ballplayer.

And he was a huge fan favorite.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't write this blog out of guilt because of how many people back home- my dad, uncles, cousins, friends- have texted me saying how sad a story his passing is and how they can't believe there was nothing on Barstool about it.

I didn't want to just throw up a copy-and-paste obituary and embed a tweet, so I read up on him a little and was really surprised to learn about what an awesome guy he was.

He played his entire MLB career in Boston. He was devastated by the work stoppage in '94, and was outspoken about the damage it did to the fans and the game overall.

He was born in Kentucky, but grew up not far from the Everglades, where the Red Sox spring training facility is in Fort Myers, FL.

Subsequently, he had one of the sickest nicknames in all of sports- "The Gator". While at spring training, he captured a baby alligator outside the practice field, taped its mouth shut, and left it in a teammate's locker.

(He also had one of the sickest Costaco posters of all time. Check out my thread on them here)

If Jose Canseco wasn't juicing in 1988, he would have won the MVP-

His best season came in 1988, when he batted .325 with 22 homers, 119 RBIs and 16 stolen bases and hit for the cycle in a September game. Greenwell also delivered a then-AL record 23 game-winning RBIs, a statistic that is no longer recognized by Major League Baseball, and he drove in all of Boston’s runs in a late-season 9-6 victory over Seattle.

That put him in the MVP mix. When Canseco later acknowledged he was using steroids that season, Greenwell asked, “Where’s my MVP?”

That same season, he hit for the cycle-

And drove in 9 runs in one game -

And had a great ALCS -

He had a very underrated career statistically -

After he retired, he started racing stock cars and was actually pretty freaking decent -

After he retired from racing, he ran for, and won a seat as Lee County District 5 Commissioner in Florida.

Once again, cancer took somebody far too soon. But by all accounts, it seems like Mike Greenwell lived a pretty amazing life. And touched a lot of others' lives. Which it's all about. Rest In Peace, Gator.

Here are some of the pics I mentioned -