Overcoming Adversity: Baseball’s Tony Conigliaro Award

The Tony Conigliaro Award is one of the most intriguing awards in sports. Given by the Red Sox every year to a Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies overcoming hurdles to play the game. The award is given in Conigliaro’s name because of the way that he came back from being hit in the face by a pitch and managing to come back and lead the American League in home runs.

With some recipients of the award, said hurdles are mostly physical. For example, John Lackey won in 2013 because of the way in which he came back from Tommy John surgery and returned to his former self. Some of the recipients receive the award because of a hardship in other aspects of their lives. Yangervis Solarte, the 2016 winner, received the award because of his ability to deal with losing his wife to cancer and still manage to come back for a career year. Both Solarte and Lackey were able to overcome their own individual challenges and still manage to play the game they love with the same intensity as they had before.

Co-written by Boston College PhD candidate Clayton Trutor, Overcoming Adversity: Baseballs’s Tony Conigliaro Award delves into the nomination and selection process for each year, with each recipient of the award receiving a chapter of the book explaining why he was selected. Trutor conceived the book because of his favorite player, Tony C, and devoted it to honoring Conigliaro’s legacy. The book can be purchased on Amazon for either Kindle or paperback here.