Janet Marie Smith, the renowned ballpark planner who is the Worcester Red Sox Ballpark Design Advisor, JP Ricciardi, a Worcester Major League Baseball icon, and Jarren Duran, the former WooSox and current Boston Red Sox All-Star outfielder, have been selected as the 2025 WooSox Hall of Fame inductees.
The WooSox Hall of Fame was established in February, 2024 to recognize the outstanding careers and contributions of former or current WooSox players, managers, coaches, broadcasters, and executives as well as others who have been instrumental in the history of the Worcester Red Sox and Worcester baseball.
This past March, the second-ever WooSox Hall of Fame class was chosen by a 17-person panel, which includes club executives, print & broadcast media members, and business & community leaders. Details on events surrounding the 2025 WooSox Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Polar Park this season, will be announced at a later date.
The inaugural WooSox Hall of Fame class in 2024 included Larry Lucchino, the late Chairman & Principal Owner of the Worcester Red Sox who is also a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer, Ed Augustus Jr., the former Worcester City Manager, and Rich Gedman, the former Boston Red Sox catcher and current WooSox hitting advisor who is also a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer.
Janet Marie Smith is a leader in the sports development business with a career focused on venue design and planning. She and late WooSox Chairman & Principal Owner Larry Lucchino collaborated, starting as far back as 2017, to build Worcester’s award-winning Polar Park. The home of the Worcester Red Sox opened on May 11, 2021 and this spring will already welcome its 2,000,000th fan. Voted “Best Ballpark in Triple-A Baseball” by Ballpark Digest and USA Today, Polar Park has played to rave reviews while being the focal point for large area development in the resurgent Canal District of downtown Worcester.
Smith and Lucchino first partnered to create Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore more than 30 years ago leading to a revolution in ballpark ambiance and architecture which created a unique new vision of a traditional, intimate, old-fashioned downtown ballpark with modern amenities.
An innovative downtown ballpark itself, cozy Polar Park has helped revitalize New England’s second largest city. Fans love their new home and the WooSox are the only club in all of Minor League Baseball to sell more than 500,000 tickets each of the last three years.
Janet Marie is currently the Co-Founder and Chair of Canopy Team and the Executive Vice President, Planning & Development for the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
Canopy Team is a woman-led firm headquartered in Baltimore, MD and Pasadena, CA that specializes in large-scale sports projects, urban revitalization, and community-driven developments, as well as smaller projects like museums, retail spaces, and public parks.
She is also the Executive Vice President of Planning & Development for the Los Angeles Dodgers and has served in a similar executive capacity for the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, and Turner Sports and Development.
At Dodger Stadium, Smith has overseen the modernization of Dodger Stadium including the creation of the Centerfield Plaza in 2020, Dodger Stadium’s first-ever “front door,” featuring new fan amenities and improved accessibility with escalators, elevators, and bridges. Highlights of her career also include overseeing the renovation of Fenway Park from 2002-2009 and the creation of Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which set a new standard for ballpark design when it opened in 1992.
Smith’s non-sports projects include Battery Park City in New York and the redevelopment of former industrial buildings along Baltimore’s harbor.
A native of Jackson, MS, Janet Marie holds a degree in architecture from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in urban planning from City College of New York. She has an honorary doctorate from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and has been the Edward P. Bass Visiting Professor at Yale University.
Smith has received numerous awards including the ALDS Visionary Award, CUNY Townsend Harris Medal, and has been inducted in the State of Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. She is also featured in the National Baseball Hall of Fame “Diamond Dreams” exhibit in Cooperstown, the “Women in Baseball” exhibit at Fenway Park, and is in the Inaugural Class (2011) of the Sports Business Journal’s Women in Sports.
Local baseball legend JP Ricciardi “retired” from an acclaimed 43-year career in professional baseball in the winter of 2024. A Worcester native, Ricciardi is former teammates with WooSox and Red Sox Hall of Famer Rich Gedman as the two starred on the great St. Peter-Marian High School baseball teams in the late 1970’s. JP went on to play at St. Leo University and then as an infielder in the New York Mets Minor League system playing for Single-A affiliates, Little Falls in 1980 and Shelby in 1981.
He began his post-playing as a coach in the New York Yankees Minor League system before joining the Oakland Athletics as a Minor League instructor and scout in 1986. By the early 1990’s he had risen to the rank of East Coast scouting supervisor and later national crosschecker, but his big break into the front office came in 1996 when he was promoted to A’s Assistant General Manager, first under Sandy Alderson and then under new GM Billy Beane in 1997.
Ricciardi’s reputation grew during his successful stint with Oakland and it led to him being named General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2001. As Blue Jays GM from 2001-09, JP kept his teams competitive in the challenging American League East led by stars like Roy Hallady and Carlos Delgado.
JP spent the 2010 season as an analyst on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. He returned to the front office as the Mets Asst. GM from 2011-2019 and more recently was the San Francisco Giants Senior Advisor from 2019-2023.
During the 2024 and 2025 seasons, JP has joined the WooSox broadcast crew providing color analysis for WooSox telecasts on NESN & NESN+.
Ricciardi and his wife Diane live in West Boylston, MA. Their son Dante is currently a scout with the Boston Red Sox (and was their Scout of the Year for 2024) while their other son Mariano recently retired after a three year Minor League playing career. In addition to his WooSox broadcaster role, JP also runs his own podcast called “The Brushback with J.P. Ricciardi” that streams on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran, who had a record-breaking 2024 season that included being named Major League All-Star Game MVP, becomes the first active player to be elected to the WooSox Hall of Fame. Duran, 28, was the first-ever batter in WooSox history when he led-off Worcester’s inaugural game on May 4, 2021 in Trenton, NJ against the Buffalo Bisons. He spent parts of three seasons with the WooSox (2021-2023) playing in 139 games with 28 HR, 80 RBI, and 36 stolen bases.
A California native, Duran was selected by the Red Sox in the 7th round of the 2018 First-Year Player Draft out of California State University (Long Beach) where he was a standout second baseman from 2016-18.
Jarren made his Major League debut on July 17, 2021 at Yankee Stadium and singled off Gerrit Cole on the first pitch he saw. He split the 2022 season between Worcester and Boston before putting together a terrific 2023 campaign when he was named Boston Red Sox Comeback Player of the Year after batting .295 in 102 games.
Duran rewrote the Red Sox and MLB record-book while playing 160 games and being named Red Sox MVP during an outstanding 2024 season. He led Major League Baseball in doubles (48) and was tied for 1st in triples (14) becoming the first player to lead both leagues in doubles and triples since Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1968. Ty Cobb (1908, 1911, 1917) and Bobby Veach (1919) are the only other American League players ever to do so.
Jarren also ranked among the top five players in the Majors in plate appearances (1st, 735) hits (5th, 191), extra-base hits (4th, 83), runs scored (8th, 111), stolen bases (T9th, 34), outfield assists (1st, 12) and defensive runs saved (2nd, 23). He was also a Gold Glove finalist.
Furthermore, Jarren became the first player in MLB history with 10+ triples (14), 20+ HR (21), 30+ steals (34), and 40+ doubles (48) in a season. Later in the 2024 season he was joined in that accomplishment by Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals.
It all added up to Duran earning his first All-Star Game selection. And during that game on July 16, 2024 at Globe Life Field in Texas, he broke a 3-3 tie with a decisive 2-run HR in his first at-bat of the game in the bottom of the 5th-inning to propel the AL All-Stars to a 5-3 victory. Jarren became the fifth Red Sox player to earn All-Star Game MVP honors joining Carl Yastrzemski (1970), Roger Clemens (1986), Pedro Martinez (1999), and J.D. Drew (2008).
The WooSox Hall of Fame Classes of 2024 and 2025 join members of the Pawtucket Red Sox Hall of Fame that was established in December of 2015. Eleven members were enshrined starting in 2016 through the PawSox final year of 2020: Owner Ben Mondor, 3B Wade Boggs, OF Jim Rice, Manager Joe Morgan, C Carlton Fisk, 1B Mo Vaughn, President Mike Tamburro, OF Fred Lynn, RHP Roger Clemens, INF Nomar Garciaparra, and C Jason Varitek.
