Projo Sox Blog

Boston baseball is a little different now than the last time Arthur Giddon, 99, stood on a professional field.

When he was a batboy for the Boston Braves in the early 1920s, the players were smaller, the salaries miniscule, and the game was just starting to blossom into the true national pasttime.

But the allure of being close to it all was just the same back then. So Giddon, then living in Brookline, would go to Braves Field often, and look for ways to help out.

"I used to go there all the time, hang around, run errands," the Bloomfield, Ct. resident said from the field of Fenway Park this afternoon, where he was honored by the Red Sox on the eve of his 100th birthday.

Eventually, the Braves noticed the 12-year-old, and they gave him a job picking up bottles. He parlayed that into other work.

"I'd hang around, do errands for them, polish their gloves, polish their shoes," Giddon said. "One day it happened that they needed somebody for a very important job -- batboy."

He spent two years as a Braves batboy. It was among the best experiences of his life.
"If I could walk, I would do it again," he said.

A huge Red Sox fan since the Braves left town in the 1950s, Giddon recalls the 2004 World Series win as just as great a moment.

"I went crazy. My wife thinks I'm going to go insane. I'm a little kid, I'm sitting there -- we've got a huge TV -- screaming and yelling," the 99-year-old said.

Giddon came to the park yesterday in a No. 100 Red Sox jersey with the letters "Big Pappy" across the back. He spent hours on the field greeting the current players, including the real Big Papi, of course. He hugged most of them, and shared stories, like the time he said he met Babe Ruth.

With the Yankees in town today, Giddon, of course, swears that he knew the Ruth-to-the-Yankees move was a bad trade at the time.

 Tags  Boston Red Sox Dan Barbarisi David Ortiz

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