Tommy Holmes, star outfielder, embodiment of Boston Braves

Tommy Holmes (right), celebrating a World Series win with Warren Spahn (center) and Bob Elliott. Mr. Holmes played a decade with the Boston Braves. (ap/file 1948)

Tommy Holmes, who drove home the winning run in the first game of the 1948 World Series for the Boston Braves, had a special relationship with the fans who sat in the "jury box" bleachers along the right-field line at Braves Field in Allston.

"Tommy represented what the Braves were all about," said Boston Braves Historical Association executive board member Saul Wisnia. "A non-flashy, working-class player who conversed with the fans during games and signed autographs in his street clothes afterward.

" 'How many hits you gonna get today, Tommy?' a patron might yell, and Holmes would shout back a reply or hold up however many fingers he deemed appropriate. Once the fans had a Boston cop throw a guy who was heckling Tommy out of Braves Field. He remained their favorite son at our Braves reunions."

Mr. Holmes, the 1945 Sporting News Player of the Year who was also player-manager of the Braves for most of the 1951 and part of the 1952 season, died yesterday after a short illness in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 91.

"Tommy Holmes is as beloved to Braves fans as Johnny Pesky is to Red Sox fans," said Braves Historical Association business manager George Altison of Marlborough, a member of the Braves "Knothole Gang" in 1941 when Mr. Holmes played his first season in Boston. "Tommy was a wrist hitter who credited the great Pirates hitter, Paul Waner, with helping him improve when Waner was finishing his career with the Braves."

His son, Tommy Jr., of East Hampton, N.Y., said Mr. Holmes kept his Braves uniform, socks, and cap. "He loved every minute of his time in Boston and he received fan mail long after he left," he said.

During the 1945 season, Mr. Holmes, who wore No. 1 as a Brave and batted leadoff, was the first major league player to finish first in home runs (28) while recording the fewest strikeouts (just 9). He set the National League consecutive-game hitting record (37 games), broken 33 years later by Cincinnati's Pete Rose, and he also led the league with 224 hits, 47 doubles, a .577 slugging percentage, 81 extra-base hits, and 367 total bases while batting .352.

Former Braves catcher Del Crandall, Mr. Holmes's teammate in 1949 and 1950, said he was treated well by the veteran outfielder. "He always made rookies like myself and Johnny Antonelli feel like one of the guys," Crandall said. "He was a real pro the way he went about his business, and when I played in Milwaukee, I inherited his uniform No. 1."

Over 10 years with the Braves and a portion of the 1952 season with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mr. Holmes had a career .302 batting average, 88 home runs, and 581 RBIs. He hit .325 in 1948 when the Braves - who moved to Milwaukee five years later - won the National League pennant, then lost the World Series in six games to Cleveland. His game-winning hit at Braves Field (now Boston University's Nickerson Field) came off Cleveland ace Bob Feller.

From 1973 to 2003, Mr. Holmes worked for the New York Mets as director of amateur baseball relations. In that capacity, he was in attendance at Shea Stadium when Rose broke his record.

"Tommy, always the gentleman, came onto the field with tears in his eyes and thanked Rose for helping fans remember him," said Wisnia, who has written an essay on Mr. Holmes for an upcoming book, "Spahn, Sain and Teddy Ballgame: Boston's (almost) Perfect Baseball Summer of 1948."

Born in Brooklyn, Mr. Holmes originally was signed by the Yankees, then sold to the Braves. "I always said it took the best ballplayer in the world - Joe DiMaggio - to run me out of New York," Mr. Holmes once joked. "But the Boston fans would do practically anything for me, and I never forgot it."

He was also instrumental in helping the Braves initiate the Jimmy Fund in 1948. He was one of several players, along with manager Billy Southworth, whose visit to a young cancer patient known as "Jimmy" (real name Carl Einar Gustafson) at Children's Hospital was nationally broadcast on radio. The Braves' efforts helped raise $200,000 that year.

Mr. Holmes also leaves his wife of 67 years, Lillian (Petterson) of Boca Raton; his daughter, Patricia Stone of Woodbury, Conn.; two sisters, Kay Ferraro of Staten Island, N.Y., and Loretta Watkins of Lake Lucerne, N.Y.; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be Friday at 11 a.m. at Kraeer Funeral Home in Boca Raton.