Farms bakers backed Pesky from the start
Sep 24th, 2008 by Paul Leighton
When they put Johnny Pesky’s No. 6 up on the wall at Fenway Park Friday night, Mr. Red Sox should give at least a little bit of thanks to Joe and Barbara McDonald. That’s Joe and Barbara in the photo above from four years ago, standing inside their Farms Bakery in Beverly Farms with one of their bumper stickers urging the Sox to retire Pesky’s number.
The McDonalds printed 500 of the bumper stickers at their own expense and gave them out to customers. They also gave customers letters to send to the Red Sox asking them to retire No. 6.
The McDonalds closed the bakery two years ago and are now up in Caribou, Maine, still running a bakery. It’s even still called Farms Bakery. I tracked down Joe at his bakery this morning and asked him how he felt about the news that Pesky, after all these years, is going in the Red Sox Hall of Fame.
“Finally,” Joe said. “It’s great.”
McDonald said he got the idea for the Pesky campaign from Steve Leveille, a WBZ Radio talk show host who was pushing for Pesky’s induction.
Asked how much credit he deserves, McDonald said, “I’m sure we nudged them along.”
