Tom 'Flash' Gordon

Strikeouts at Head Field

Thomas Gordon was born November 18, 1967 in neighboring Sebring, but Avon Park is where he grew up. His father, Thomas, worked at an area plant nursery, and his mother, Annie, cooked at a regional rehabilitation center. In a lively home with five siblings, baseball was the family pastime. His brother Anthony pitched for the high school, and Tom began playing in local youth leagues by 1980.

On the mound at Avon Park High School, working under head coach Ronnie Jackson at Head Field, Gordon threw a fastball that earned him the nickname Flash and a sharp curveball that hitters could rarely touch. He struck out 21 batters in a single seven-inning contest. Over one three-game stretch, he struck out 46 of the 48 hitters he faced. In his senior spring of 1986, he compiled a 12-1 record with 188 strikeouts in 88 innings. The Kansas City Royals drafted him in the sixth round that June.

Twenty-one seasons on major league mounds

Gordon made his major league debut with the Royals in September 1988. In 1989, he won seventeen games and finished runner-up for American League Rookie of the Year. He spent eight seasons in Kansas City as a durable starting pitcher before signing with the Boston Red Sox in 1996.

In Boston, manager Jimy Williams shifted Gordon to the bullpen to close games. That move sparked one of the finest relief runs in modern baseball history. In 1998, Gordon led the American League with 46 saves, converted 43 consecutive save opportunities, and finished with a 2.72 earned run average. Between 1998 and 1999, he converted 54 straight saves in regular season play, setting an all-time major league record.

That dominant 1998 campaign crossed into American literature. Author Stephen King wrote the bestselling novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, telling the story of nine-year-old Trisha McFarland, who gets lost in the Maine woods and finds courage by following Gordon’s ninth-inning appearances on her portable radio.

Longevity, rings, and the Gordon legacy

Gordon pitched twenty-one seasons in the big leagues, retiring in 2009 after 890 games with eight organizations. He recorded 138 wins, 158 saves, and 1,928 strikeouts over 2,108 innings. Only three pitchers in Major League Baseball history have reached 100 wins, 100 saves, and 1,900 strikeouts: Dennis Eckersley, John Smoltz, and Tom Gordon.

In 2008, at age forty, Gordon collected a World Series ring as a veteran reliever with the Philadelphia Phillies. Avon Park inducted him into its Champions Club Hall of Fame in 2012, alongside his high school coach Ronnie Jackson.

Gordon also started a family baseball dynasty. Two of his sons, Dee Strange-Gordon and Nick Gordon, reached the major leagues, giving Avon Park three big leaguers from one family. At the grand opening of the Avon Park Depot & Baseball Museum on May 9, 2026, where Keith Goodson painted his portrait on the north wall mural beside Hal McRae, Gordon spoke to the crowd, thanking the community for teaching him the game and giving him the foundation to pitch for more than two decades.

Photographs

The Gordon Legacy exhibit wall in the Baseball Museum. Photograph: Avon Park Depot Museum.

Tom Gordon’s number 36 Red Sox jersey on display. Photograph: Franc Branca / Branca Media.

Major league uniforms of Tom, Dee, and Nick Gordon. Photograph: Avon Park Depot Museum.

All our local heroes