He was said to exert a positive influence on young Red Sox star Babe Ruth, serving as his roommate and his manager.

[4] Carrigan started his career as a platoon catcher and played all ten seasons with the Boston Red Sox.

"Carrigan served Ruth as a combination father confessor, drill sergeant, psychologist and Dutch uncle," wrote Johnson.

In July of that year, they paid $25,000 to Baltimore of the International League for Babe Ruth, Ernie Shore and Ben Egan.

[7] Carrigan received a dispensation from the Catholic Church to marry a Protestant woman, Beulah Bartlett, before the 1915 baseball season.

He and his wife had a child, also named Beulah, in November,[11] and they later had another daughter, Constance, and a son, William Jr.[12] With Carrigan having turned down Lannin's pleas to remain manager of the Red Sox, and with Lannin having sold the team, new owner Harry Frazee named Jack Barry as Carrigan's successor in January 1917.

The group owned as many as fifty theaters and there were three other partners in the corporation: a Lewiston man named William P. Gray; a former Mayor of Portsmouth, Albert Hyslop; and former New Hampshire Governor John H. Bartlett.

In the article announcing the sale of his theater shares, the Washington Times even speculated that he might be preparing to buy the Red Sox from Frazee.

[4] By early December 1929, Carrigan said he was uncertain whether he would accept President Bob Quinn's offer to return as Red Sox manager.

Despite the team's struggles, James O'Leary of The Boston Globe wrote that "Pres Quinn and every baseball fan in New England and throughout the entire American League circuit would like to see the veteran back on the job next season.