1938-1942, 1946

Charlie Wagner served the Red Sox with a continuous tenure longer than any other person before or since. From his signing in 1934, to the day he died while scouting for the Red Sox in the summer of 2006, he could count more than 70 years with the Sox – excepting only the three years he spent in the United States Navy during World War II. 

He was born on December 3, 1912, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a four-letter man in high school and played third base when he wasn’t on the mound. But it was pitching he enjoyed the most and where he had his greatest success. 

Charlie signed a 1935 contract and agreed to go to Charlotte in the Class B Piedmont League. He had one of the best earned-run averages in the league at 3.22. In 1936, for Rocky Mount (Piedmont), he was 20-14, with a 4.07 ERA. Then in Minneapolis he thrived, having an excellent 1937 (20-14 again, with a 3.53 ERA in 278 innings, with 20 complete games).

1938 season was the first year that he took spring training with the Red Sox and he made the team. He didn’t get nearly enough work because manager Joe Cronin, and most of baseball, greatly favored veteran pitchers at the time. After sitting around more than he wanted, Charlie approached Cronin and told him that he didn’t want to just sit there and wanted to pitch.

Cronin shipped him back to Minneapolis where Charlie developed a lifelong friendship with a young outfielder on the Millers by the name of Ted Williams During the time he spent with the big-league club, Charlie was Ted Williams’ roommate. 

Charlie spent most of 1939 with Louisville and in August the Sox called him up. In 1940 he began the season with the Red Sox and was up and down to Louisville, but finished strong with the Colonels, losing his first game but then winning nine in a row (with a 1.84 ERA) and three playoff games to help bring the Colonels deep into the Junior World Series against the International League’s champs. 

The following two years, 1941 and 1942, Charlie spent the full year with the Red Sox. He pitched in 29 games each year, with records of 12-8, and a 3.08 ERA and 14-11, with a 3.29 ERA respectively. They were good years and Charlie was a solid part of the starting rotation.

In 1942 he enlisted in the Navy as a second-class seaman. As the war dragged on, he missed three full seasons (1943-45). He played some ball for the Navy at the Norfolk Naval Training Base, but not nearly as much as some players did during the war years. He was ultimately shipped out to the Philippines where he developed a serious case of dysentery and it did him in as a pitcher. 

Charlie stuck with the Red Sox for the full 1946 season, starting four games in the middle of the season but threw only 31 innings. He was so weak that his last game was in August and he didn’t appear in the World Series.

After the year was over, he was offered a job as assistant farm director and so Charlie’s second career with the Sox began in 1947. Charlie worked, making the rounds – the Red Sox had an extensive system of 12 minor-league farm clubs.

After 15 years as assistant farm director, he became a roving minor-league pitching instructor and scout beginning in 1962. For the most part, he enjoyed teaching, which he did (admittedly to a declining degree) right up to his final year. 

He spent one year working again at the major-league level. In 1970, incoming Red Sox manager, Eddie Kasko’s first official move was to ask Charlie to serve as Boston’s big-league pitching coach. It was just for the one year, and he returned to his prior duties. Scouting and instructing was the work he truly loved, and it was a love he never lost. 

The Red Sox honored their longtime, loyal employee in March 1998, so for his last several years when Wagner went to the minor-league complex, he could drive and park on "Charlie Wagner Way".

On Opening Day 2005, at the conclusion of Fenway Park ceremonies, celebrating the long-awaited world championship of the Boston Red Sox, it was Charlie Wagner who was asked to make the call to announce the start of the new season. Dapper as always, he spoke into the microphone, “Let’s play ball!"

Charlie Wagner began to experience dementia and passed away on August 21, 2006, in Reading, Pennsylvania, at age 93.