Former Boston Red Sox fan favorite Mike Greenwell has died at age 62.
Greenwell’s wife, Tracy Greenwell, told radio station WINK in Lee County, Fla., that her husband died on Thursday. Tracy also shared a post on social media revealing that Greenwell died at a hospital in Boston.
“With a heavy heart, I lost my best friend today,” Greenwell wrote, via The Associated Press. “It was Mike’s time to be an angel. At 10:30 a.m. in Boston’s General Hospital. We are forever grateful for the life he has given us.”
It had been reported earlier this year that Greenwell was battling medullary thyroid cancer.
Greenwell spent his entire MLB career with the Red Sox from 1985-1996. He became Boston’s full-time left-fielder in 1987, and he had enormous shoes to fill at the time. Hall of Fame players Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski and Ted Williams occupied left field for Boston before Greenwell.
A former high school baseball and football star in Fort Myers, Fla., Greenwell had an impressive career batting average of .303 with 130 home runs and 726 RBI. He was named an All-Star in 1988 and 1999. Greenwell also won a Silver Slugger Award and finished second in the AL MVP voting in 1988. He batted .325 with 22 home runs and 119 RBI that season.
Greenwell spent a brief period with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan after his career with the Red Sox ended. He was then a player-coach for a Double-AA team in the Cincinnati Reds’ organization before moving back to Florida, where he drove late-model stock cars for a decade.
Greenwell, who was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2008, was nicknamed “The Gator.” He earned the nickname when he captured an alligator, taped its mouth shut and put it in teammate Ellis Burks’ locker during spring training.
More recently, Greenwell was appointed to the county commission in Lee County by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Greenwell was reelected to the position in 2024.
