Trot Nixon

No one was going to give Trot Nixon a speeding ticket.

Not for the inspirational leader of the Boston Red Sox, the left-handed outfielder with the dirty uniform and the grinder spirit who became a fan favorite for wanting to win just a little bit more than most. His country was under attack, his wife was in the hospital, and he was eager to meet their first child.

Nixon woke up that morning – September 11, 2001 – after barely an hour of sleep, thanks to a plane trip from New York to Tampa and an all-night card game with teammate Morgan Burkhart.1

When the phone rang at 5 A.M., he knew immediately his wife was likely in labor and that his son was on the way into the world. He knew it was going to be a long day to get back to Boston from the Gulf Coast of Florida.2

He also knew it would be well worth the travel ahead.

Surely it was, but Nixon’s 19-hour trek to meet his firstborn was more difficult and traumatic than he could have ever imagined.3

For Nixon, hardly a patient man working in the most impatient baseball town in the American League, the journey back to Boston wasn’t even the hardest part. The world looks different when seen through the smoke of the Pentagon on fire while driving on Interstate 95 and through the dust caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center.

It almost made what happened two years later, when Nixon’s improbable return to the lineup to help the Red Sox win their first World Series championship in 86 years, seem small by comparison.

So, Nixon did what worked for him throughout his professional baseball career: simplify and focus.

Born for Baseball?

Christopher Trotman Nixon was born in Durham, North Carolina, into a family with tobacco-farming and baseball roots. His father, Dr. William P. Nixon, a former high-school teammate of Jim “Catfish” Hunter, became a physician in Wilmington, North Carolina, moving his family to the coast before his son could walk, much less Trot.

The young athlete grew up at a Wilmington quarterback factory, terrorizing high-school opponents in both football and baseball unlike few who had ever competed in a state known for good athletes.

Throughout his prep career, the hallways of New Hanover High School echoed with the memories of highly decorated NFL signal-callers Roman Gabriel and Sonny Jurgensen. They traveled through stops at North Carolina State and Duke, respectively, to realize their NFL dreams.

Neither, however, pulled off the dual-sport feat that Nixon did as a senior when he was named the state’s most valuable football and baseball player and the USA Today North Carolina Athlete of the Year.

In the fall of 1992, Nixon led New Hanover’s undefeated football team to the second round of the state’s 4A playoffs.4 N.C. State, the state’s most successful Division I football program at the time, signed him to a scholarship to be part of a quarterback lineage that includes NFL passers Gabriel, Erik Kramer, Philip Rivers, and Russell Wilson.

In baseball, Nixon was even better, taking New Hanover’s 1993 team to the school’s first state championship since 1959,5 when it was still called Wilmington High. Surely, he could excel in both sports at N.C. State, as Gabriel did from 1959 to 1961.

New Hanover’s title run, after years of disappointment in the state playoffs, mirrored what happened during Nixon’s major-league career, particularly after he and future New York Mets draftee Fletcher Bates called their teammates together following a season-opening loss to Garner High and gave them what-for. They announced in that meeting their intention to carry the team over the hump that had blocked the program for more than three decades.

“Our team had a get-down-and-dirty attitude,” said head coach Dave Brewster in a 10th-anniversary profile in the Wilmington Star-News. “They were gritty.”6

Nixon was practically unstoppable, hitting 12 homers, driving in a state-record 56 runs and posting a 12-0 record with a 0.40 earned-run average on the pitcher’s mound. He was successful in 20 of his 21 stolen-base attempts and struck out only twice all season.

The team didn’t lose another game.

The Red Sox, at the suggestion of longtime scout Jeff Zona, made Nixon the seventh pick of the 1993 draft – the second high-school player taken after number 1 overall selection Álex Rodríguez and 14 spots ahead of future Red Sox captain and teammate Jason Varitek.7

Before Nixon could embark on the professional baseball career he knew would follow, he had to get football out of his system.

Choosing a Sport

In late July 1993, Nixon and his dad made the 2½-hour drive to Raleigh into a maelstrom of confusion that was the Wolfpack football program. Just before the start of camp, the coach who recruited Nixon, Dick Sheridan, announced his retirement, citing health issues. He was replaced by quarterbacks coach Mike O’Cain.

The prospective freshman showed up every morning at 7:30 to prepare for two-a-day workouts, knowing he had three weeks before the start of classes to decide his baseball future, while his father and family adviser Ron Shapiro of Shapiro, Robinson and Associates negotiated with the Red Sox.

Just as Nixon looked as though he might be the third Red Sox first-round pick to not sign with the team, joining Jimmie Hacker in 1970 and Greg McMurtry in 1986, he took an accidental hit on his throwing elbow, a scare that hastened his decision to play baseball.

On August 25, 1993, he and the Red Sox agreed to terms, with a then-club-record signing bonus of $890,000 and a promise for a spot on the 40-man roster in 1994 and 1995.8

“I really did want to play college football and baseball and experience the full college atmosphere,” Nixon said 30 years later. “I wanted to do it at N.C. State, and I was dead serious about it.

“But I was also dead serious about my dream to play professional baseball.”9

Making Hard Decisions

Nixon spent five years in the minors, honing his offensive and defensive skills.

“It becomes a job real quick,” Nixon said. “You’ve got to fine-tune things and get better if you want to be successful. To me, getting drafted was not successful. My dream was to get to the big leagues and win.”

That didn’t happen in the first half of Nixon’s first Triple-A season. Specifically, things weren’t going well on May 11, 1997, when he was playing for the Pawtucket Red Sox and the parent team came to McCoy Stadium for its annual exhibition game. Nixon was hitting under .150 and thought it was the right time for a pregame break.

“We don’t have time to take days off,” hitting coach and Red Sox legend Rico Petrocelli told the 23-year-old first-round pick with exactly four major-league at-bats.

“He got on me hard,” Nixon said. “I needed it.”10

By the end of the season, Nixon had raised his batting average to .244 and finished with 20 homers and 61 RBIs, good numbers on a good team in the International League.

The next season also started slowly for a prospect who was showing some age.

“I was sitting on the back steps of the outdoor batting cages in Louisville at a real low point in my career,” Nixon said. “It was like I was hanging on a cliff, about to fall off. I told myself, ‘God gave you the ability to play the game, and right now you aren’t using that ability. You can’t get out of your own way.’”11

What Nixon needed was a little joy from the game, a kid-like perspective of putting passion into his play.

“Sometimes you lose that pure love of the game,” he said. “So sitting on the steps of that batting cage, I made the decision to get back to that point, to play hard, to play with joy.”

He also made some technical adjustments, moving his front foot up in his stance and switching to a heavier 35-ounce, 36-inch bat. He finished the year with 23 homers, 74 RBIs, and 26 stolen bases.

Sticking in the Big Leagues

It’s hard for any major-league player not to forget his first hit. For Nixon, it was a dream scenario.

He was briefly called up to the Red Sox in September 1996, fulfilling a contractual obligation to be part of a late-season roster expansion. Mostly, he was there to observe, with no anticipation of making a meaningful contribution.

The night before the next-to-last game of the season, left fielder Mike Greenwell told Nixon he would be in the starting lineup the next day against the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees. Nervously getting ready for his first at-bat, Nixon took a practice swing and accidentally dropped his bat on Yankees catcher Joe Girardi’s head.

On the first pitch he saw from Ricky Bones, however, Nixon pulled a single to right field and eventually found himself standing on third base.

“Was that your first hit?” Wade Boggs asked him. “I hope you get a ton more.”

Nixon got another hit later in the game and saw 13 more games as a late-season call-up in 1998.

He played well enough in his second stint that manager Jimy Williams put him on the postseason roster. He started in right field in Game Three of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Indians and went 1-for-3.

Cleveland won the series three games to one, but the message was clear for Nixon: Be ready to play – with passion, with joy, and with dirt on his uniform – in 1999.

A Platoon Stalwart

Nixon played the majority of his first two full seasons in right field as half of a platoon with either Damon Buford or Darren Lewis.

He started slowly in 1999, just 4-for-38 in the first 12 games, and he was hearing whispers that general manager Dan Duquette was ready to ship Nixon out of Boston, by either trade or demotion. One afternoon he was called into the manager’s office.12

“Tough going right now,” Williams said.

Nixon braced for the worst.

“We’re going to change some things up,” Williams told him. “You’re going to keep playing, don’t worry, but we’re going to change up your stance. We’re going to simplify things.

“You’re going to be good, kid.”13

Nixon had better than a .320 batting average for the month of May, hit ..393 in July, and cemented an enduring love for the manager who put unwavering faith in his abilities. Still playing in a platoon, Nixon was comfortable batting in the bottom two slots in the lineup, hitting all 15 of his home runs and driving in 49 of his 51 runs from the eighth and ninth positions.14

The next year, Williams was ready to make even bigger moves with Nixon, first putting him in the leadoff spot, then moving him down to either second or third. He played 102 games in the top third of the lineup, with all 12 homers and 58 of his 60 RBIs from those slots.15

“Next to God giving me my abilities, my parents and my coaches growing up who taught me the game, I owe my career to Jimy Williams,” Nixon said. “That’s probably a bold statement, I know, but everyone on the team knew that if they had something bad to say against Jimy, they better not say it around me.”

In the Air on 9/11

When Nixon’s plane left Tampa International Airport at 6:30 A.M. on September 11, 2001, he dozed off almost immediately. He slept deeply, with the satisfaction of a player finally riding a breakout season.16

He was awakened by an announcement from the pilot about a detour to Norfolk, Virginia, but a commotion in the cabin and the panic-stricken face of a flight attendant suggested anything but a routine mechanical problem. The next pilot announcement came with a wings-vertical bank to the left: “The President of the United States has ordered all aircraft in American airspace to the ground.”17

Nixon learned just how traumatic the morning had been in US airspace when he landed in Norfolk, Virginia. He called his parents in Wilmington. He called his wife in Boston, now in full labor. And he called a cousin in Hertford, North Carolina, to make arrangements to be picked up as quickly as possible.

Finally, he talked to his wife’s doctor and said for the first time what he knew hours earlier: “I’m not going to be there in time for the delivery.”18

Neither his wife nor her doctors knew what was going on in New York, Washington, or rural Pennsylvania, the sites of terrorist attacks that day. Nixon finally had to give her the details on the phone.

Nixon’s cousin took him to their grandparents’ home in Hertford, where his father, mother, and younger sister picked him up to begin the race to Boston to be with his wife. They sped through Washington, around New York City, and into Massachusetts. Late in the evening, Nixon loaded on three Mountain Dews, took over the driving from his father, and he stepped on the accelerator.19

He knew his wife, Kathryn, was in good hands, as Bitsy Hatteberg, wife of teammate Scott Hatteberg, spent the entire day in the delivery and recovery room with her. He kept driving through the night as the rest of his family slept.

Sometime around 3:30 A.M., Nixon made it to the Boston hospital where his new family waited for him and held his son, Chase, in his hands.20

World Series Champion

In addition to the birth of his son, Nixon had plenty to be proud of in 2001. He hit 27 home runs and drove in 88 runs. It was the first of three consecutive seasons in which he had at least two dozen homers and 75 RBIs. He was not only solidly in the Red Sox lineup, he hit third in the batting order for much of the year.21

Nixon overcame the Red Sox decision to fire Williams in August of 200122 and endeared himself to successors Joe Kerrigan, Grady Little, and Terry Francona over the next three years for his hard play in the field. He became the emotional leader of the Dirt Dogs, the name pitcher Paul Quantrill gave Nixon and several other Red Sox players.23 It’s a nickname still used by Boston.com on the top of its Red Sox fan page.

Nixon was the perfect embodiment of that dusty spirit. His locker-room nameplate read “Volcano” because, said first baseman Brian Daubach, “he could erupt at any time.”24

He did just that from 2001 to 2003, the three most productive seasons of his career. Fully healthy, he averaged 26 home runs, 90 RBIs, and 5 stolen bases, while hitting .273 in the top half of the lineup. He had career highs with 28 home runs and a .306 batting over 134 games in 2003, earning him a three-year, $19.5 million contract extension.25

It took a while for Nixon’s lava to flow during the 2004 season. On a 12-hour drive from Wilmington to Fort Myers, Florida, for spring training, Nixon exacerbated a bulging herniated disk problem in his lower back. It cost him the first 63 games of the season.

Not long after he returned, he pulled the quadriceps in his left leg, an injury that team physicians thought might sideline him through the end of the season. Off and on, Gabe Kapler, Dave Roberts, and Kevin Millar filled in for Nixon in right field but combined (11 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 5 stolen bases), they could not match Nixon’s averages in those categories for the previous three years.

Privately, Nixon knew he could be ready for postseason play. Silently, Red Sox owner John Henry helped make that happen by sending Nixon to work with a physical therapist who was more connected to Boston University and the NHL’s Boston Bruins than he was to the Red Sox medical staff of trainer Jim Rowe, assistant Chang Lee, and physical therapist Chris Correnti.

Under the close direction of Brookline, Massachusetts-based physical therapist Scott Waugh, Nixon did off-ice hockey workouts for six weeks, gaining a deeper understanding of how onerous and odorous their training for short bursts on the ice truly was.

“Hockey locker rooms are tough,” Nixon said. “They smell like the world’s biggest dirty sock.”26

Waugh helped Nixon’s impatience with the process.

“We won’t worry about what’s going to happen at the end of the year,” Waugh told him. “I’m going to train you like a hockey player. Early on, it’s going to suck, but I think it will pay off.

“Let’s simplify and get to work.”

By the end of August, Nixon was ready for his first trip to the minors in six years.

He played one game for the Sarasota Red Sox and three for Pawtucket. He ripped 9 hits in 24 at-bats. He felt game-ready, but when he returned to Boston’s active roster on September 7, he was in danger of disrupting a red-hot lineup that had won 19 of 22 games.

Sporting an unsightly Mohawk haircut, Nixon pinch-hit in five of his first six games, including a two-run homer in a loss to Tampa Bay. In his lone start, he had two hits, including a double, in four trips to the plate.

“It was the best I had ever felt in my life,” Nixon said.27

Because of his extended absence, there were whispers that general manager Theo Epstein might not include him on the postseason roster, but that wouldn’t have set well with the established star, even though he had contributed only 6 home runs and 23 RBIs in 48 regular-season games.

“Theo, I’m not missing this ride,” Nixon said.28

What happened over the next three weeks was too good to believe, even for a Dirt Dog with big dreams. Nixon played in 13 of the 14 postseason games and, just as he had the year before, he produced at the most critical times.

He had just two hits in two games against the Anaheim Angels, but both drove in critical runs.

He felt completely healthy to face the Yankees, in a rematch of the previous year’s American League Championship Series.

After the Red Sox lost the first three games and faced elimination, Nixon wasn’t sure what would happen.

“It was kind of an impossible situation,” he said.

Nixon credited Varitek, the veteran catcher and team captain, for producing a winning strategy for the famous “Four Days in October.”

“Varitek rarely ever spoke, but when he did, we all listened,” Nixon said. “All he said was that we all knew what we needed to do. He told us to focus on each half-inning. If they score one in the top, we score two in the bottom. Just win each half-inning. And that’s what we did – everyone was just totally locked in.”

“It was all such a fairytale ending just to get to the World Series.”29

The Cardinals never really had a chance in the 4-0 sweep. In the final game of the season, in the game that ended the Red Sox’ 86-year championship drought and was played on the 18th anniversary of the Game Seven loss to the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series, the oft-sidelined Nixon had three doubles and drove in two of his team’s three runs to send New England into pandemonium.

“It really was the most magical season in Red Sox history,” Nixon said. “I owe everything I was able to do that year to the Man Upstairs and John Henry.

“He took a chance to go a little different route on my rehab, and it paid off for me.”30

Breaking the famed Boston curse was the headline of the season, of course, but Nixon’s contributions earned him a spot in Red Sox lore as well. He was the first of Boston’s 78 first-round picks in franchise history to help the Red Sox win a World Series title.31

The club’s homegrown talent – including first-round picks Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Blake Swihart, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Andrew Benintendi – helped win three subsequent titles in 2007, 2013, and 2018.

Breaking Away

Nixon had two more injury-laden seasons with the Red Sox, in which his power numbers and productivity dwindled to his pre-2001 numbers. Including the championship season, Nixon had just 27 homers over three seasons, as his Dirt Dog style continued to take its toll on his body.

In 2004, he had managed to come back with great force after the herniated disk and quad injury but that didn’t happen in the following years.

In 2005 he had both an oblique strain and arthroscopic surgery at the end of the season.32

In 2006 he had an early season groin strain and missed a month with a biceps strain.33

The club did not offer salary arbitration and pulled back on a two-year extension, choosing instead to offer a five-year, $70 million contract to J.D. Drew to take over right field.34

Nixon and agent Michael Moss began looking for new places to play and chose to sign a $3 million, one-year deal with the up-and-coming Cleveland Indians,35 who needed the experience of an outfielder with five different trips to the postseason.

Nixon was again saddled with injuries and eventually gave up his position in right field to prospect Franklin Gutierrez, as the Indians jumped out to a fast start. He went weeks without playing but made a deal with Indians manager Eric Wedge to lead the team’s clubhouse after the team lost three consecutive series following the All-Star break.

“I told Eric I would take over the clubhouse, and he could run the team,” Nixon said. “It was a good young team. We made it fun. I was happy because I was making an impact on the young players.”36

The Indians won the American League Central Division, finished tied with the Red Sox for the most wins (96) in the American League and clobbered the wild card Yankees in four games in the Division Series.

Cleveland went up three games to one against the Red Sox but lost the last three games for a chance to go to the World Series. As Nixon walked out of Fenway Park for the last time as a major-league player, a group of fans gave him an appreciative ovation for all that he meant to the club, from the days he chose to sign a contract instead of playing college football to breaking the most famous curse in professional sports history.

“I don’t think the people who were there know what that meant to me,” Nixon said. “I wasn’t a great player. Without the injuries, I could have been a lot better. But I cared about the game. I cared about my teammates. I cared about the city of Boston.

“All I ever wanted to do was win, and I was a part of a team that won it all.”37

After Baseball

Nixon signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks in January 2008 and was assigned to three different minor-league teams in the first half of the season. In June he was traded to the New York Mets and was called up for his first-ever action in the National League on June 12.38

He played just 11 games for the Mets, then signed a contract with the Milwaukee Brewers in the offseason.39 He was released before the season started.

Nixon thought about pursuing a career in coaching, broadcasting, or front-office work, but the pull of raising his sons, Chase and Luke, was too strong and he retired to Wilmington.“I talked with Grady Little about it,” Nixon said, “and he told me, ‘The one regret of my career was that I was never there to see my boys growing up. If you can afford it, stay there in Wilmington and watch your boys play.’”
“I had some opportunities to stay in baseball, but I just wanted to be with my wife and kids.”40

Both boys had outstanding high-school careers and both chose to play college baseball at N.C. State, the school where their dad once entertained the idea of being a football and baseball star.

Nixon watched them play every game, and he never missed a birthday.41

In December 2023, Trot Nixon was voted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2024.

Notes

1 Christopher Trotman Nixon, personal interview with Timothy Michael Peeler, September 1, 2022, Doak Field at Dail Park, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina. Hereafter, Nixon interview.

2 “Athletes Share Their 9-11 Memories,” ESPN: The Magazine, September 19, 2011. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/6942890/athletes-kevin-durant-dale-earnhardt-jr-abby-wambach-more-share-their-9-11-memories-espn-magazine.

3 Nixon interview.

4 North Carolina High School Athletic Association, 1992 football playoff bracket, 1992 Football State Championship Bracket – NCHSAA.

5 North Carolina High School Athletic Association, 1993 baseball playoff bracket, https://www.nchsaa.org/bracket/1993-baseball-state-championship-brackets/.

6 Chuck Carree, “10 Years Ago, New Hanover Baseball Ruled the State,” Wilmington Star-News, May 11, 2003. https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/2003/05/11/10-years-ago-new-hanover-baseball-ruled-the-state/30516185007/.

7 Baseball Reference, 1993 Baseball Draft, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1993_Amateur_Draft.

8 Nick Cafardo, “Hobson Planning Four-Man Rotation,” Boston Globe, August 27, 1993: 51. 

9 Nixon interview.

10 Nixon interview.

11 Nixon interview.

12 Bob Ryan, “Williams Made the Right Move by Trusting Nixon,” Boston Globe, September 16, 1999: C5.

13 Nixon interview.

14 Baseball Reference, 1999 season splits, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=nixontr01&year=1999&t=b.

15 Baseball Reference, 2000 season splits, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=nixontr01&year=1999&t=b.

16 Nixon interview.

17 Nixon interview.

18 Nixon interview.

19 Nixon interview.

20 Nixon interview.

21 Baseball Reference, Trot Nixon season stats, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nixontr01.shtml.

22 Nixon interview.

23 Bob Hohler, “It Centers on Nixon,” Boston Globe, July 19, 2001: C1, C5

24 John Powers, “Starry Bursts by Nixon,” Boston Globe, June 13, 2001: 87.

25 Associated Press, ESPN.com, February 6, 2004.

26 Nixon interview.

27 Nixon interview.

28 Nixon interview.

29 Nixon interview.

30 Nixon interview.

31 Boston Red Sox MLB First Round Draft History, ESPN.com, https://www.espn.com/mlb/draft/history/_/team/bos.

32 “Trot Nixon Goes to the DL,” UPI.com, July 27, 2005, https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2005/07/27/Trot-Nixon-goes-to-the-DL/44481122505527/.

33 Associated Press, “Red Sox Place Nixon on DL, Activate Wells,” ESPN.com, July 26, 2006.

34 Gordon Edes, “Exciting Signs,” Boston Globe, December 6, 2006: C1 33.

35 Associated Press, ESPN.com, January 19, 2007.

36 Nixon interview.

37 Nixon interview.

38 Associated Prress, “Nixon Traded to Mets to Help Injury-Riddled Outfield,” ESPN.com, June 14, 2007.

39 Associated Press, “Brewers Add Outfielder Nixon,” ESPN.com, December 18, 2008. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3779852.

40 Nixon interview.

41 Nixon interview.