Yet another man has come forward to claim that former Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager Donald J. Fitzpatrick sexually abused him. A former Kansas City clubhouse attendant, Gerald Armstrong, alleges that Fitzpatrick repeatedly assaulted him during the late 1960s.
The Boston Globe reports that with Armstrong’s allegations, there are now 20 men demanding a combined $100 million — $5 million each — from the Sox for misconduct they claim Fitzpatrick committed from the 1960s until he left the team in 1991.
Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty in 2002 to four counts of attempted sexual battery against boys younger than 12 between 1975 and 1989 at the team’s former spring training headquarters in Winter Haven, Fla. He died in 2005 at age 76 while serving a 10-year suspended sentence.
Florida investigators said they linked Fitzpatrick to nine other alleged victims in Winter Haven but were unable to prosecute the cases because the statute of limitations had expired. Several of those men were among seven former clubhouse attendants who sued the Sox in 2001 for $3.15 million over Fitzpatrick’s alleged misconduct.
“‘Looking back, I’m not shocked that he continued to do to other kids what he did to me,’ Armstrong said of Fitzpatrick, who joined the Sox as a batboy in 1944. ‘But I’m shocked the Red Sox continued to employ him for so many years.'”
