The San Diego School of Baseball was backed by hitting stars such as Tony Gwynn and Alan Trammell, but it was the pitching minds that gave the early 1980s baseball camp its charm — and its legacy.

Brent Strom and Tom House had been teammates at the University of Southern California and then, later, journeyman pitchers in the major leagues. Aside from lineage, they also shared deep-seated hunches that there was more to learn about baseball than previous generations had taught.

So when the day’s instruction was over, they sat in the dugouts of Grossmont College or ventured to a local watering hole, tossing ideas back and forth: the things they loved about the game, the things they thought were wrong, the things they wanted to change.

Once, during a baby shower for another coach’s wife, the men were scolded when they were found in the corner of a room, playing back film of pitchers. They were all obsessives, and the San Diego School of Baseball was their offseason oasis — a place where they could gather and discuss, without judgment and scorn, some of the very concepts that decades later would alter the balance of baseball.

“A summit,” House called it, “of smart baseball minds.”

Before PITCHf/x and Statcast could measure progress, before internet message boards and…

BOSTON — It’s not uncommon for kids to go out to the backyard and play catch with their dad.

What is uncommon is when the dad is a former big-league pitcher.

And when Dad happens to have been a longtime practitioner of the tricky and dreaded knuckleball, that’s off-the-charts unusual. But so it was with the late Tim Wakefield and his two kids, Trevor and Brianna. Like most dads, he played catch with the kids. Like hardly any dads, he taught them how to throw a knuckleball.

Which brings us to Fenway Park, Tuesday afternoon, Opening Day, Red Sox versus Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox held a pregame ceremony in memory of Wakefield and his wife, Stacy, both of whom died of cancer over the past six months. The club also remembered longtime Sox president Larry Lucchino, who died last week.

When it came time for someone to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, it was Brianna Wakefield, an 18-year-old high school senior who’ll be headed to Boston College this fall, who toed the Fenway rubber. Now for everyone who was at Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon, for everyone who was watching on television, for everyone who was listening to Hall of Fame-bound Joe Castiglione call the game over the radio, the answer to your question is yes, yes, yes, of course Brianna Wakefield took a very Tim…

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has declined his invitation to be a part of the 2004 championship ceremony the Red Sox will hold during their home opener on April 9, according to team sources. The Boston Globe first reported the news.

The Red Sox announced earlier this week they would be hosting a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 2004 team during their home opener and that all members of the team had been invited to attend. In addition, the club plans to honor the life of former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield and his wife Stacy, both of whom died recently from cancer.

GO DEEPER

At the Jimmy Fund, tragic loss of Stacy and Tim Wakefield felt deeply: Buckley

Schilling pitched in Boston for four seasons and was a key part of the Red Sox’s 2004 and 2007 World Series teams, but became a controversial figure in his post-playing career. Schilling officially retired in March 2009 but threw his last official MLB pitch in 2007.

In 2015, he was suspended from a broadcasting job at ESPN and then fired the following year for making insensitive remarks on social media about Muslims and members of the transgender community.

Later in 2016, Schilling made headlines again for sharing a photo on Twitter of a Donald Trump supporter wearing a T-shirt that read, “Rope. Tree….

Shortly after haggling his way out of free-agent purgatory and into a new contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kiké Hernández asked his wife, Mariana, to investigate another market. She contacted former Dodger Rich Hill’s wife, Caitlin, with a request: Could the Hernándezes live in the Hills’ house again? 

The Hills had bought the property, located in the Toluca Lake neighborhood, in 2017, soon after Rich signed a $48 million contract. The family decided not to sell it after Hill’s final season with the team in 2019. The house has since become a popular destination among Dodgers personnel. Catcher Austin Barnes lived there one season. Manager Dave Roberts has inquired about its availability. When Hernández rejoined the team at last year’s trade deadline, he moved into the house, which is a convenient 20-minute drive from Dodger Stadium, with access to three different highways. 

“It’s very appealing, because of the location,” Hill said. 

But that’s not its only selling point; almost as important is that the homeowner understands his tenants’ nomadic baseball lifestyle.

When searching for a place to live, players often rely upon each other’s recommendations, connections, and familiarity with baseball’s unique schedule and travel. That has led to a…

Bianca Smith made headlines when she was hired in January 2021 as the first Black woman coach in professional baseball’s history. CNN, BBC and People Magazine were among the outlets that ran stories about the newest Boston Red Sox minor league coach.

Two years later, Smith left the Red Sox organization to much less fanfare – leaving a multi-year offer on the table because she says she didn’t feel challenged.

“They wanted to send me back to rookie ball and I had no desire to be there, so I decided to take my chance,” Smith said in a phone interview with The Athletic. “Everyone I know who stays at rookie ball (for a long period of time) does so because they have families and they like the lifestyle. I was ready to travel more. My passion is (game) strategy and rookie ball is almost entirely player development.”

Smith isn’t giving up on getting back to MLB. She’s pivoting. The 31-year-old moved to Japan last summer and is coaching elementary and middle school baseball through the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program, which she called a “bucket list” item. Smith also recently accepted a job with the Great Britain women’s national baseball team and the 23 and under Great Britain baseball team.

Smith’s goal for this part of her coaching career is to…

The Hall of Fame is made for players like Adrián Beltré. As a pure hitter, reliable slugger and slick third baseman, Beltré had few peers: No other infielder in the history of baseball has 3,000 hits, 400 homers and five Gold Glove awards. Beltré, now 44, was a lock for the Hall of Fame.

As a first-time Cooperstown candidate, Beltré did not need to follow the breathless tracking of public ballots this winter. Yet he still could not feel secure, he said, until his wife and son assured him on Tuesday that election day looked promising. He could savor it.

“That made me relax a little bit more, and I kind of forced myself to try to enjoy this moment,” Beltré said from his home in Southern California, moments after achieving his sport’s greatest honor. “It was going to be a nice moment, and probably the last moment in baseball that I was going to accomplish, being at the pinnacle of the game.”

Beltré had company at the summit on Tuesday, with Todd Helton and Joe Mauer joining him in the new class of Hall of Famers. Former manager Jim Leyland, elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee last month, will also be inducted at the ceremony July 21.

Candidates must receive 75 percent of the ballots from 10-year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of…

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 25-year-old free-agent star pitcher from Japan, dined on Saturday night at the Connecticut home of New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, league sources confirmed.

It’s believed that the dinner went well, with the participants enjoying the hospitality and free-flowing conversation leading to a generally good connection. During the meeting, the Mets were again able to share with Yamamoto why they believe they’d be the right spot for him. The Cohens hosted Yamamoto seemingly in hopes of offering a nice, personal touch, one that may help distinguish the Mets from the other clubs locked in competition for the righthander’s services.

The in-person meeting, first reported by the New York Post, was the latest example of Cohen and the Mets doing whatever it takes to try and land Yamamoto, the highest-ranked (No. 3) unsigned free agent on The Athletic’s Top 40 free agent big board. Earlier this month, Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns flew to Japan to meet with Yamamoto.

Stearns, manager Carlos Mendoza, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and Cohen’s wife, Alex, also attended the dinner. Meanwhile, Yamamoto brought his own translator. Overall, the meeting was a step forward for the Mets, who have put Yamamoto at the top of their list of…

BOSTON — Thursday was Tanner Houck’s 27th birthday. Friday marked two weeks since he was hit in the face with a line drive by the Yankees’ Kyle Higashioka at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox have offered few updates on Houck’s status other than a note on Tuesday that he underwent successful surgery at Mass General Hospital for “open reduction and internal fixation of a right orbito-zygomatico-maxillary complex (OZMC) fracture.”

Say that three times fast.

One person who has more information than most on Houck, though is his best friend on the team: Garrett Whitlock.

So The Athletic sought out an update from Whitlock — with the caveat that Whitlock is not, by his own admission, a trained medical professional. But he is a good friend, and he listened closely to everything Houck said.

Houck described the surgery to Whitlock as inserting two tiny plates, one roughly an inch or so long to the side of his right eye, with a second, slightly larger plate, just under his eye on the cheekbone.

“It’s not like it (the plates) covers half his face,” said Whitlock, who saw a picture from Houck of what it would look like before the surgery.

Houck stayed at the hospital overnight Tuesday and was discharged Wednesday morning. He’s been resting at his apartment with his wife Abby.

When…

BOSTON — Rob Refsndyer walked into the media interview room on Saturday ahead of a doubleheader against the Rays and offered up some self-deprecating humor.

“I thought this place was reserved for everyday players,” he said with a smile as chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom sat next to him.

Earlier in the day, the Red Sox announced a one-year deal with Refsnyder with a team option for 2025. Refsnyder is set to make $1.85 million for the 2024 season and the club option for 2025 is worth $2 million, a source told The Athletic.

The timing of the announcement before a Saturday doubleheader against the Rays seemed to line up with Refsnyder’s unorthodox career path. There have been a lot of unexpected turns for the 32-year-old outfielder over the past seven years, in which he’s played for six teams.

But Refsnyder has finally found his footing with the Red Sox, even if it is as a fourth outfielder. He’s grateful for the job security, something he’s had all too infrequently in his career.

“As I sit here, and think about the course of my career, it has been a little unorthodox,” Refsnyder said. “I think back to all the great support staff, my wife, my parents, coaches, people that believed in me, even when, at times I didn’t really believe in myself. So a lot of credit…

An offbeat dash of history was jotted into the Red Sox scrapbook on the night of May 15, 1998. In the bottom of the second inning of Boston’s series opener against the Kansas City Royals, a local kid, Framingham’s Lou Merloni, batting at Fenway Park for the first time in his brief major-league career, socked a three-run homer off lefty Jose Rosado.

The dash of history? By taking Rosado over the Monster, Merloni became the third Italian-American who was born and raised in the Boston area to hit a home run in his first Fenway Park at-bat. The others: Eddie Pellagrini (1946) and Tony Conigliaro (1964).

OK, in the annals of Red Sox history, it’s not exactly Ted Williams hitting .406, or Roger Clemens registering two 20-strikeout games. Besides, there was some for-real history made that night, even if nobody knew it at the time: future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, finishing out his career via a one-season cameo with the Red Sox, recorded a save in Boston’s 5-2 victory. It was the 390th — and last — save of Eckersley’s brilliant career.

But I have my own reasons for remembering that game.

It was Lou Merloni’s parents — Louis E. Merloni and his wife, Sandra — who stand out in my memory.  I had ventured down to the grandstand behind home plate that night to get…