With several former MLB stars and Boston Red Sox players participating in the Invited Celebrity Classic at Las Colinas Country Club over the weekend, the tournament decided to honor late pitcher Tim Wakefield during Friday’s festivities.
Wakefield, who spent 19 years in the MLB with the Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates and was an avid golfer who participated in several pro-am tournaments, died of brain cancer in October, and his wife Stacy passed of pancreatic cancer just a few months later.
“I think the best thing for me to say is to keep it short and sweet,” former Red Sox manager Terry Francona told the crowd that gathered to watch. “Wake was a really, really good pitcher, but he was a much better person. Wake, we miss you; we love you. Stacy, we miss you; we love you. Thank you, everybody, for coming out here this afternoon. He was so special to all of us, and for us to take a minute to think of him is certainly worthwhile. We love Wake, and we miss him dearly.”
The ceremony included a moment of silence to remember the knuckleballer, which was followed by former Red Sox Francona, Roger Clemens, John Smoltz, Jon Lester, Derek Lowe, and Kevin Millar, taking a synchronized tee shot on the driving range.
Former teammate Clay Buchholz also participated in the tournament, but a mix-up with the tee times prevented him from attending the ceremony.
“To recognize him, I think that speaks volumes about how people feel about Wake,” Francona added to The Dallas Express. “Now, these guys used to beat him up [on the course], then he’d take it out on me. He was passionate about golf. I mean passionate.”
Of those in attendance, Smoltz spent the shortest amount of time as Wakefield’s teammate, but that didn’t stop the two from creating an excellent friendship throughout their careers,
“I joined them, and we were the two old guys on the team, and we bonded right away,” Smoltz recalled to The Dallas Express. “I played against them, obviously, with Atlanta and Pittsburgh, but when I had that half a season with Boston, we hit it off and played a lot of golf, and he just was the ultimate in every aspect. I wasn’t with him as long as those guys, but it was a sad day when we found out. … It’s just kind of crazy to think that I’m not going to see him again.”
