The Red Sox front office and dugout have been reshuffled more thoroughly than a poker deck at Foxwoods, but one thing hasn't changed since last year. When hitters new or old want to hone their swings against a lefty, they will find an unimposing 38-year-old father of three from Needham on the mound, serving up not-so-fastballs right where they want them. You see, while some pitchers are dubbed "can't-miss prospects," Matt Noone has found his big-league niche as a pitcher whom hitters just can't miss.
Noone is a batting-practice pitcher for the Sox, pitching to the starters before games when the team is scheduled to face a lefty and keeping the bench players sharp when a righty is due to start for the opponent. It's only a part-time gig for Noone -- who is also the full-time head baseball coach at Babson College, a Division III school that turns out more CEOs than MVPs -- but it's provided plenty of thrills.
He grew up dreaming of being a pro player. "But reality set in probably in high school," admits Noone. "I never dominated at any level." But he did get enough out of his smooth, though never scorching, lefty delivery to play for Princeton and even make the All-Ivy League team twice. After graduation, he landed coaching stints at his old stamping ground of St. Sebastian's School in Needham, then Northeastern University, the competitive Cape Cod Baseball League (where college players essentially audition for the pro scouts), and finally at Babson. Along the way, he was always throwing batting practice, always keeping that "average" left arm in shape.
It was in the Cape League in the 1990s that Noone coached Jed Hoyer, who later became a Red Sox executive; in the summer of 2002, Noone got to know Peter Woodfork, a Cape League alum who also worked for Sox management. When Boston needed to see how prospects hit lefty pitching, Noone was the guy summoned to throw batting practice to them. And in July of 2004, when the Sox were struggling against southpaws and had no left-handed coaches to throw batting practice, Woodfork remembered Noone and gave him a call.
Taking the Fenway mound for the first time on an afternoon before a night game, the 5-foot-10 Noone threw to a murderers' row of Dave McCarty, Gabe Kapler, and Doug Mirabelli. They deposited enough balls in the Monster seats that Noone was asked back the next day, when Bill Mueller and Jason Varitek took their cuts in preparation for facing a daunting lefty starter in Kenny Rogers, then of the Texas Rangers. The Sox proceeded to hang eight earned runs on Rogers that day, and Noone was soon the team's regular southpaw slugging-dummy. Red Sox pitching coach Dave Wallace says: "There are a lot of guys who can't do that. They're intimidated by the fact that it's Manny Ramirez at the plate. Matt looks like a natural."
In the weeks to come, the Sox bats sprung to life, and while Noone would shake off anyone suggesting his work had anything to do with it, the team thought he was important enough to take him with them to Anaheim, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, and even the Bronx. After David Ortiz hit a game-winning home run off lefty Jarrod Washburn to sweep the Angels in the 2004 division championship series, Noone was part of the champagne-drenched clubhouse celebration. The Sox were not scheduled to face any more lefty starters, so Noone assumed his run with the team was over. But as he started to leave, he remembers Sox skipper Terry Francona calling to him: "Hey, Matt, you're gonna be with us the rest of the way, right?" More than a year later, Noone's face still lights up when he recalls Francona's words. "It kinda caught me off guard," he says. "And I just said, 'Absolutely!'"
The following season, as the Sox attempted to defend their first World Series title in 86 years, Noone reprised his role, squeezing in occasional sessions at Fenway during the college baseball season with more steady work during the summer. But he considers every moment he spends with the big leaguers and coaches career development he can pass on to the ballplayers at Babson. "To have a ham-and-egger like me be a fly on the wall and observe how the coaches do things . . . you can't help but to take it with you and have it rub off on you."
The 2005 season, of course, ended earlier than the 2004 season, but that wasn't the only sad news Noone had to deal with back home in Needham. His 6-year-old son, Timmy, had grown accustomed to a certain tradition. "When the season ends for Babson, I have the guys over the house for a cookout, and it's a big deal for my kids," he says. "So when the Red Sox lost to the White Sox, my son asked me the next morning over breakfast, 'When are the Red Sox coming over?'"
For now, at least, Timmy will have to live with his father just serving the Sox nothing but a steady diet of not-so-fastballs.
Shawn Peters is a regular contributor to the Globe Magazine's
"Coupling" column and a fantasy sports columnist for
talentedmrroto.com.
E-mail him at
tbssportspage43@comcast.net. 