Harry Agganis

Aristotle George Agganis
(The Golden Greek)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 2", Weight 200 lb.
• School Boston University
• High School Lynn Classical High School
• Debut April 13, 1954
• Final Game June 2, 1955
• Born April 20, 1929 in Lynn, MA USA
• Died June 27, 1955 in Cambridge, MA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

"I had played with Harry at both Louisville and Boston. Had he lived to fulfill his baseball life, I think he would have been one of the all-time great players. He was real friendly, easygoing, and so modest that you never would have known that he had any history of fame or had even seen a football. It was a shock throughout baseball when he died." - Hershell Freeman, in Danny Peary's 1994 book We Played the Game

Harry Agganis played two years for his hometown Boston Red Sox, primarily wearing number 6, before dying at 26. He was hitting .313/.383/.458 in 1955 when he was fatally stricken.

Agganis was a quarterback on the Boston University football team, where he won an award in his senior year designating him New England's best collegiate football player. His college football career was interrupted by two years of service in the United States Marine Corps (1949-1951). He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame [1]. He showed some power in his one year in the minors in 1953, hitting 23 home runs, 38 doubles and 9 triples for the Louisville Colonels. Agganis was hospitalized on May 16, 1955, during his second season with the Red Sox, complaining of chest pains. He died six weeks later. One of baseball's more tragic stories - a human life and a promising career cut far too short. The cause of death was listed as a massive pulmonary embolism.

Further Reading

• Mark Brown: "Harry Agganis", in ""Mark Armour and Bill Nowlin, eds.: Red Sox Baseball in the Days of Ike and Elvis: The Red Sox of the 1950s, SABR, Phoenix, AZ, 2012, pp. 141-152. ISBN 978-1933599243

Related Sites

• Harry Agganis at the SABR Bio Project
• Find-A-Grave Memorial for Harry Agganis