Red Sox: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Fenway Park
By Rick McNair
Jim Eisenreich
Jim Eisenreich was a gifted player who hit .290 over a 15-year career. Eisenreich also suffered from Tourettes Syndrome with the most noticeable visible part of the condition being tics and involuntary movement. Fortunately, Eisenreich never had the condition at-bat, but in the field it wass noticible.
The early part of his career was one that could best be described as extremely frustrating with a dispute with Twins management and a two-year hiatus from baseball. In the early part of his career, Eisenreich was undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
Prior to a series that the Twins were to play in Boston in 1982, an article appeared in a Boston paper regarding Eisenreich and his actions in the outfield, which were simply passed off as “nerves.” That was all the encouragement needed for the bleacher denizens to formulate a torture plan for the then 23-year-old.
"”After I got back from the sanatorium, people in the stands started calling me ‘nutsy’ and ‘whacko,’ ” former Red Sox player Jimmy Piersall told the NY Times. ”They would blow sirens at me. Even today, friends tell me stories about people who want to know if I’m really crazy. You have to face all that. You’ve got to be tough to survive in sports.”"
During the game, Eisenreich was just verbally brutalized. Numerous fans would get up and start to mimic the tics that Eisenreich displayed with the expected results being accomplished when Eisenreich had to be removed from the game still shaking and hyperventilating.
The period between 1982-84 saw Eisenreich appear in only 48 major league games and none in the minors before he chose to retire for almost three seasons. Eventually, Eisenreich returned and so did the antics at Fenway only far more muted and then no more as common sense finally prevailed.