Ken Wright: Fastest arm on the westside

They buried one of the best arms to ever come out of Warrington on Thursday.

Kenneth Wright, a former Major League pitcher with the Red Sox, Royals and Yankees organizations, died last Tuesday in Pensacola. He was 70 years old.

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Growing up on Wisteria Avenue in Warrington, Wright was a westside prodigy, throwing heat at the now-gone Warrington Ball Park off Gulf Beach Highway, and later as an ace on Escambia High's baseball squad. (Warrington is my old ball park. I always thought Jimmy Hooper, Ronnie Jackson, Curtis Kleckler and Philip Wilfong were the best pitchers Warrington produced. Wright was a few years ahead of my time and obviously much better.)

"He was just a big old boy who could throw the ball about 95 miles per hour,'' said Aaron Davis of Myrtle Grove, a high school classmate (both were class of '64) and longtime friend. "He could bring the heat."

Wright was drafted by the Boston Red Sox as a free agent in 1964, and played for the Red Sox minor league team in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Davis visited his friend up north during the Pittsfield stint.

"I got to see him in a game up there,'' Davis said. "Really, I went up to help him move back at the end of the season."

Wright wouldn't make his Major League debut until April 10, 1970, pitching for the Kansas City Royals. At Kansas City, his travel roommate — and close friend — was Lou Pinella, who would go on to become a Yankees mainstay and later one of baseball's top managers. Both were traded from the Royals to the Yankees in 1974. Wright pitched his final Major League game a few months later.

But while that was the end of Wright's baseball career, it's not the end of his story.

For decades afterward, Wright ran the Warrington Emergency Aid Center, which was founded by his mother, Mary Ellen Wright, and helps the poor and needy on the westside.

"I'd go down there a couple times a month to visit,'' Davis said. "And shoot the breeze about old times."  

Davis remembers his friend helping folks coming in looking for the necessities — from clothes to food.

"That place helped a lot of people who needed help,'' Davis said. "And Kenny managed it all for years."

Wright is survived by his wife of 50 years, Jill Wright, along with a son, daughter, brother and nieces. 

"He was just a good guy,'' Davis said. "And, he had one hell of an arm."