1964

Bill Spanswick was born in Springfield, Mass. on July 8, 1938. However, he was an Enfield CT resident for most of his life. He was a standout athlete at Enfield High School. He led the basketball team to a 12-4 record in his senior year, and he won 9 games in 1956 as the Enfield Raiders won the Valley Wheel Championship.

He threw a no-hitter and seven 1-hitters that season. He also pitched for the John Maciolek American Legion baseball team in the summers and struck out 19 batters in a contest in 1957.

He spent a year at Holy Cross in Worcester and in 1958, signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox. He started his professional career in Waterloo, Iowa, with the Class-D Hawks. After six games there, he was sent to the Lexington Red Sox of the Nebraska State League.

Bill enjoyed some dominant seasons in the minor leagues with the Raleigh Capitals in 1959, in spite of a back injury that limited his appearances. He fanned 156 batters in 152 innings and was named to the League’s All-Star team. However, he may have been a little overshadowed by his roommate and friend, Carl Yastrzemski.

Bill reached the AAA level midway through the 1961 season, when he was promoted to the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League but pitched poorly that season.

Even after a down year, he had a fan in Johnny Pesky, who managed him in Seattle before he was named Red Sox skipper. Pesky was no doubt pleased with his turnaround in 1963, the 24-year-old was easily the ace of the Rainiers’ staff. Though the Red Sox were in need of a good left-handed pitcher, the team kept him in the minors for the whole season, finally getting his shot at the majors in 1964. Pesky used Bill as a swingman, giving him a few more starts in the first half of the season, along with a few relief appearances.

More often than not, though, he struggled on the mound and fared a little better on the road. His pitching improved as the season wore on. By then, he was no longer used as a starter and worked mainly as a mop-up reliever. He ended the season with a 2-3 record and a 6.89 ERA. His struggles may have been related to an injury he suffered while with Seattle at the end of the ’63 season.

Bill never returned to the major leagues. The new Sox manager, Billy Herman, wasn’t as big a fan of his, as Pesky had been. The Red Sox demoted him to the AAA Toronto Maple Leafs, and he would spent the next three seasons pitching for AAA teams in the Red Sox organization, as well as the Angels and Senators.

He knew his career was over and didn’t bother on a comeback. He had spent the last couple years of his career taking shots and pain pills before every appearance to ease his aching arm. When he returned to Connecticut, he joined the Hamilton-Standard team in the Hartford Twilight league and threw a shutout.

After his playing career, he got into the trucking industry and eventually founded Spanswick Trucking in Enfield. He retired to Florida and worked part time as security at a Naples golf club and as an usher at Jet Blue Park, the spring training home of the Red Sox.

Bill Spanswick was inducted into the Enfield Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996 and died on December 2, 2020 in Naples FL at the age of 82.