One of the most popular players ever to play for the Boston Red Sox, Rico Petrocelli will always be remembered for his familiar “Fenway Stroke” that sent many an opposing hurler’s offerings into the net atop the left field wall.

Rico Petrocelli was born in Brooklyn, NY and went to Sheepshead Bay HS. He played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Boston Red Sox, earning two trips to the All-Star game in 1967 and 1969.

Rico was an integral and key part of the 1967 Boston Red Sox "The Impossible Dream" season in which the Red Sox finished first in the American League (AL) with a record of 92 wins and 70 losses. The regular season had one of the most memorable finishes in baseball history, as the AL pennant race went to the last game, with the Red Sox finishing one game ahead of both the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins in the final AL standings.

1967 was the team's first winning season since 1958, as the Red Sox shocked all of New England and the rest of the baseball world by reaching the World Series for the first time since 1946. Petrocelli smashed two home runs in World Series game 6 - one of them in a three-home-run 4th inning, a World Series record. The Red Sox fell to the Cardinals in seven games, however.

In 1969 he slashed for 40 HR, 97 RBI and a .297 Batting Average, finishing 7th in MVP voting. As of this writing, Petrocelli holds MLB's eighth-best all-time fielding percentage for third basemen (.970). He was inducted to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1997.

Rico also played all 7 games for the Red Sox in the famous 1975 World Series, hitting .309, scoring three runs and knocking in four runs.

(excerpted from SABR, BR Bullpen, and Wikipedia)