Pelly was a real throwback

A few of us were sitting around the cramped Boston College baseball office many years ago and we heard this query.

"In 1941, who was the best shortstop in America?"

Eddie Pellagrini was asking, and Eddie Pellagrini had the answer.

"I was!" he boomed.

He was talking defense, mainly, and he believed it with all his heart. Eddie Pellagrini had range, hands, and, oh, what an arm. He liked to joke about catching a ground ball, holding it a while, just for fun, and gunning it across the diamond to beat the runner by a half-step. The way Pelly figured it, what's the sense of having an arm if you can't show it off?

And a shortstop was what he saw when he looked in the mirror.

"After you've played shortstop," Pelly loved to say, ``third base is just camping out."

Eddie Pellagrini died two days ago at age 88. With him went a slice of Americana.

"Explaining Eddie Pellagrini to people in 2006 is a little difficult," explained Kevin O'Malley, longtime television sports executive and consultant who was Pelly's student manager from 1965-68 when Pelly was coaching at Boston College. "You don't see those type of old-time personalities very much anymore. But only 5 percent of him was old-time baseball. I'd say he was a cross between Jim Leyland and Colombo. There was the sardonic personality on the one side and the impish humor on the other."

I was beyond blessed to encounter two towering personalities during my own time at The Heights, which coincided with O'Malley's. The first was Bob Cousy. The second was Eddie Pellagrini.

One essential difference was that The Cooz kind of sailed through The Heights for six years without really getting involved outside the gym. Pelly, however, adored the place.

"He really loved BC," O'Malley recalled. "He would always talk about what an honor it was to coach there. Each year during the first week of practice he would take note of the new kids, some of whom might be struggling to put on their uniforms the right way. He'd walk up to them and say, `If you're going out there to represent Boston College on the diamond, you're gonna look like a ballplayer.' "

"When we were on the road," concurred Greg Stewart, Class of '79 and one of the founders of the Boston College Diamond Club, "you had to dress a certain way and act a certain way because you were representing BC. He was a stickler on that."

Eddie Pellagrini respected BC in the way that only someone who could never have dreamed of ever going there might. He was just a plucky kid from Roxbury who loved to play ball. College was for the rich kids. But he was a very serious Catholic who practically idolized the Jesuits. So for Pelly, BC was a very special place.

First, however, there was a baseball career. The 23-year-old Eddie Pellagrini may very well have been qualified to be a major league shortstop in 1941, but the Red Sox had a hot-shot rookie named Pesky. Then came Pearl Harbor, and when we resume the story in 1946, Eddie Pellagrini is now 28 and very fortunate to catch on with the Red Sox as a utilityman. He hits a home run in his first at-bat in the bigs, but only gets into 22 games in that season, and it was evident he was not going to be a star. Before his eight-year career would run its course, he would have the distinction of playing for two legendarily stinky teams, the St. Louis Browns and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He would also play for the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds.

Pelly would always have the satisfaction of having been a major leaguer, but the true lasting legacy of his eight years in the bigs were the friendships with the likes of Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, and, most of all, Johnny Pesky, the man Pelly could not beat out at shortstop.

They were bound by two things, the first being baseball and second being the Catholic Church.

``When he was on the ball club, we must have gone to more Holy Name meetings than anybody in baseball," kidded Pesky.

``He was a very spiritual guy," said Eddie Miller, the longtime BC sports information director. ``He believed in the will of God."

To a point.

``If he saw a kid make the sign of the cross before going to hit," said Stewart, ``he would say, `Never mind praying. When you're up at the plate, you're on your own.' "

BC athletic director Bill Flynn hired Pelly. ``I remember Bill saying, `I think we could get Pelly to coach our team,' " explained Miller. ``He drove down to Weymouth and offered him the job at a diner just before the 1957 season."

Pelly would stay for 31 years. He would win 359 games and take his team to the College World Series three times.

Young Kevin O'Malley was the son of a minor league general manager and he thought he had already met all the baseball characters he could possibly encounter. But the four years with Pelly were a special kind of graduate degree. ``He was full of aphorisms," O'Malley said, ``but they all had to do with bravado."

For example: ``Make 'im throw you out!" he would yell to base runners. That was his way of encouraging kids to take an extra base.

Or: ``If you wanna be great, you got to take a chance."

The BC baseball office was located in McHugh Forum, the hockey rink. This meant that ultra-legendary BC hockey coach Snooks Kelley was a frequent visitor. ``One day around '67 or so Snooks was going on and on about the campus protests and so forth, and while Pelly was a traditional guy, he appreciated people who thought differently," recalled O'Malley. ``Pelly says, `So these kids are all complaining about the war in Vietnam? From what I can see, it's not going so hot. They may have a point.' It was the perfect Pelly/Colombo moment."

Another Pure Pelly moment: He had a backup catcher named Larry Marino who wasn't very good. ``One day he says to me, `I know a lot of people think I'm only keeping him because he's Italian,' " related O'Malley. ``Then he says, `I can't go to hell for it, can I?' "

But it's the pure baseball O'Malley remembers most. ``I remember we're down at Providence one day, and the plate umpire is Marty McDonough, not one of Pelly's favorites," O'Malley said. ``Something happens, and he takes the team off the field. McDonough is standing there at home plate, looking very confused, and I say, `Coach, what are you going to do now?' He says, `Aw, we're going back out there. I just always wanted to do this.' "

Greg Stewart remembers an Eddie Pellagrini for whom the game was almost a sacred thing. ``Here's a classic Pelly quote," said Stewart. ``The game will tell you how good you are, not your parents, not the people in the stands, not the writers, not your friends. You always measure yourself by what the game tells you."

But he always believed the game should be fun. He loved to nickname players, especially ones with tough last names he knew he'd never pronounce. ``He had a special gift of keeping the guys loose, helping them relax," said Stewart.

Pelly cherished being part of two celebrated communities. He loved being a major league ballplayer, and he really loved being a part of BC. ``He was so puffed up about being at BC," O'Malley explained. ``And 99 percent of the people there didn't know him."

But the other 1 percent will never forget him.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.