in 1947. Pesky was signed as an amateur free agent by the Red Sox before the 1940 season and spent the next two seasons in the minor leagues. In 1940, he played for the Rocky Mount Red Sox of the Piedmont League, where he was a teammate of future Hall of Famer Heinie Manush, who was the team's player-manager. After hitting .325 with Rocky Mount, he moved up to the double-A Louisville Colonels, where he also batted .325. The next year, he was in the major leagues. Major leagues During his rookie year in 1942, Pesky led the AL in hits with 205—at the time a Red Sox record for a rookie—as well as sacrifice hits with 22. He was second only to teammate Ted Williams in average at .331, and finished third in Most Valuable Player voting behind MVP Joe Gordon and Williams. After missing three seasons due to World War II, Pesky came back in 1946, leading the league in hits once again, batting .335, third in the league, and finishing fourth in the MVP voting while also making his first and only All-Star team. His 53 hits in August set a team record for hits in a month, a record later tied by Dom DiMaggio. In 1947, Pesky batted .324 while leading the league in hits for the third consecutive year with 207. In the 1947–48 offseason, the Red Sox acquired shortstop Vern Stephens, a three-time All-Star, and asked Pesky to move to third base. The switch took a toll on Pesky, who had his worst season to date as a hitter, as his average dropped to .281. He bounced back to hit over .300 each year from 1949 to 1951, and in 1951 he and Stephens swapped positions, with Pesky returning to shortstop and Stephens moving to third base. Pesky began the 1952 season slowly, and by mid-June he had played in just 25 games, batting .149. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers in a nine-player deal, in which the Red Sox also traded Walt Dropo, Fred Hatfield, Don Lenhardt, and Bill Wight and acquired Hoot Evers, George Kell, Johnny Lipon, and Dizzy Trout. Tigers' manager Fred Hutchinson had Pesky mentor Al Kaline. On the field, Pesky split time at shortstop with Neil Berry, batting .254 in 69 games with the Tigers. In 1953, the Tigers moved Pesky to second base, and his batting average