Red Sox Recipes A-Z: Quintana’s Quesadillas

Carlos Quintana was a punchline for me growing up. A light-hitting first baseman, he played parts of 1988 and 1989 with the Red Sox before playing full seasons for in 1990 and 1991, finishing with a very modern .295/.375/.412 line in the latter campaign. Then disaster struck. In the 1992 offseason, his brothers were shot at a party in Quintana’s native Venezuela, and on the way to the hospital, Quintana’s car crashed, breaking both of his wife’s legs and his own left arm and big toe. He missed the entire season and when he returned in 1993, he had lost feeling in his left hand while being quickly replaced by Mo Vaughn, and that was that.

I think I fixated on Quintana as a punchline because…