From 2016 to the time of his death, Mr. Lucchino also served as the chairman of the Jimmy Fund, which raises millions for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is the Sox official charity.

Yet Mr. Lucchino’s more enduring legacy was the five ballparks that were built or reworked under his supervision.

“I once asked [former commissioner Bud Selig] what’s the hardest thing he’s ever done,” Mr. Lucchino said. “He said, ‘That’s easy. Trying to get a ballpark built.’ ”

A Pittsburgh native who grew up watching Pirates games at Forbes Field, Mr. Lucchino favored old-style parks with modern amenities instead of the charmless multipurpose stadiums that became popular during the 1960s and ‘70s.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards, completed in 1992, was erected on the grounds of the former Baltimore & Ohio railyard using brick and iron instead of concrete and encompassed the original 19th-century warehouse, which was turned into office space and concessions areas.

Petco Park in San Diego, which opened in a downtown setting in 2004, employed sandstone, stucco, white-painted steel, and dark blue seats to reflect the city’s seaside setting.

Before Henry took over the Sox, plans had been floated to tear down Fenway and build a new ballpark. Mr. Lucchino had other ideas, according to Charles Steinberg, who was with him in Baltimore and San Diego before becoming Boston’s executive vice president of public affairs.

“I said [to Mr. Lucchino], ‘When we get to Boston, are we going to build a new ballpark?’ ” Steinberg later told The Athletic. “He said, ‘Have you learned nothing? You preserve the Mona Lisa!’ ”

Mr. Lucchino persuaded ownership to refashion it and oversaw a $200 million renovation orchestrated by architectural consultant Janet Marie Smith, who’d designed Oriole Park.

During subsequent years, the 1912 facility was enlarged and transformed with Monster seats atop the Wall, a remodeled clubhouse, club suites, and a right field upper deck.

Fan-friendly upgrades included roomier concourses, expanded concessions areas, improved restrooms, and pregame access to the field. “We’re in the ‘yes’ business,” Mr. Lucchino liked to say.

Updated surroundings and a contending club produced a record 820 consecutive home sellouts during the next decade. “The Red Sox were as popular as any professional team could possibly be,” Mr. Lucchino observed.

During his time with the Red Sox, Mr. Lucchino also oversaw the construction of JetBlue Park, the club’s spring training home in Fort Myers, Fla. The facility features a Fenway-inspired Green Monster in left field, a manual scoreboard, and a “Pesky Pole,” named after legendary Sox figure Johnny Pesky.

Mr. Lucchino also directed the construction of Polar Park, a $90 million, 9,500-seat venue in Worcester’s Canal District that serves as the home of Boston’s Triple A farm team.

He was born on Sept. 6, 1945, the son of Dominic, a bar owner who became a state court employee, and Rose, a secretary and accounting clerk. Although Mr. Lucchino was a second baseman on the Taylor Allderdice team that won the city’s high school baseball championship, his better sport was basketball. He played guard on the Princeton varsity that finished third in the 1965 national championships.

“He wasn’t as quick as our other guards but he always worked hard at his game,” said teammate Bill Bradley, who went on to play for the New York Knicks before becoming a senator. “I never saw him slack off.”

Mr. Lucchino went on to Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The two would serve as staffers on the House committee that investigated the Watergate scandal.

He then joined the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, where he was a protégé of Edward Bennett Williams, one of the country’s foremost litigators and also an owner of the Orioles and the football Washington Redskins.

“He gave me a chance and everything flowed from that,” said Mr. Lucchino, who became general counsel for both franchises, a member of the Redskins board of directors, and subsequently Orioles president. He is the only person to have a Super Bowl ring, a World Series ring, and an NCAA Final Four watch.

Mr. Lucchino’s style was both intense and impatient. “It’s energy, energy, energy, go, go, go,” said Kevin Towers, who was San Diego’s general manager. “Don’t sit and think, do it!”

Life in a Lucchino front office was decidedly alterable. “Rigid, methodical people have a tough time working for Larry,” said Steinberg.

“Larry will come in like a gust of wind and change things you’ve planned. Things get better when he calls an audible. But it can throw you off if you’re used to a traditional corporate mentality.”

His tenacity, while unsettling, was undeniably effective. “Stubbornness is supposed to be a trait of Calabrians,” said Mr. Lucchino, whose forebears came from the toe of the Italian peninsula.

“I’ve made a few enemies,” said Mr. Lucchino, who described himself as “a scorched-earth kind of guy.” “I’ve got some scar tissue from the battles in baseball.” But his assertive approach invariably delivered results.

Baltimore, which lost its first 21 games in 1988 and was dubbed the “Zer-O’s” en route to a 107-loss campaign, finished second in the American League East the following season and led the division at the end of August. San Diego, last in the National League West in 1994, played in the World Series four years later.

“The team was at the bottom of the hill,” said Mr. Lucchino, who took the Padres job after Peter Angelos bought the Orioles in 1993 and departed Baltimore with $14 million in club equity. “We had the worst attendance, the worst imagery, the worst revenues, the worst won-lost record, probably the worst uniforms. It couldn’t have been any worse.”

When his relationship with software billionaire owner John Moores soured in 2001 — “it was six great years and one bad year” — Mr. Lucchino was lured to Boston, where Henry, a commodities investor, had bought the franchise. It was, Lucchino said, “like coming from New America back to Old America.”

“The Red Sox are magic words to the ears of any baseball executive,” said Mr. Lucchino, who became an equity partner. “It’s Mecca. It’s the top of the mountain.”

The Lucchino presidency began with the dismissal of both general manager Dan Duquette and manager Joe Kerrigan, the installation of Mike Port as interim GM, and the hiring of Grady Little as manager.

When the Sox missed the playoffs for the third consecutive year in 2002, Mr. Lucchino brought in Theo Epstein, a Brookline native who’d been an Orioles intern and who went with Mr. Lucchino to San Diego.

At 28, Epstein was the youngest GM in major league history. “This is no longer your father’s Oldsmobile,” Mr. Lucchino observed.

His “win now” philosophy meant taking direct aim at the archrival Yankees, which Mr. Lucchino dubbed the “Evil Empire.” “He was a very formidable adversary,” said New York president Randy Levine. “A great competitor. We went back and forth for many years.”

After losing the seventh game of the 2003 league championship series at New York on an 11th-inning walkoff home run, the Red Sox, led by manager Terry Francona, responded with a historic resurrection in 2004, winning the final four games of the ALCS to claim the pennant in the Bronx and then sweeping St. Louis for Boston’s first championship since 1918.

Philosophical differences with Epstein came to a head after the following season. The general manager favored restocking the farm system to create a consistent contender while Mr. Lucchino, who abhorred “rebuilding years,” wanted short-term success.

The ongoing disagreement due to what Epstein said was “a lack of shared vision” resulted in his quitting in 2005 when his contract expired on Halloween and leaving the ballpark in a gorilla suit.

When Epstein returned before the following season, it was with the understanding that he would be the public face of the franchise.

He and Mr. Lucchino worked together for another six seasons in what Epstein called “a complicated but ultimately productive relationship” before he left for Chicago to become the Cubs president.

The Red Sox won another championship in 2007, sweeping Colorado in the Series after coming back from the brink against Cleveland in the ALCS. But probably the most emotional triumph came in 2013 following the Boston Marathon bombing.

“This is our [expletive] city,” declared slugger David Ortiz, whom Mr. Lucchino asked to speak before the first home game after the attack. The Red Sox responded with a dominant campaign that culminated in a Series victory over St. Louis, the club’s first home title since 1918.

“More and more the team took on the character of the city,” mused Mr. Lucchino. The next two years were far less exuberant, though, as Boston twice finished at the bottom of the division.

In what the club said was a planned succession, Mr. Lucchino stepped down at the end of the 2015 season and was replaced as president by Sam Kennedy. “Fourteen years in a 24/7 job is a lot,” said Mr. Lucchino.

During that time, Henry expanded his sports realm, creating the Fenway Sports Group, with Mr. Lucchino as chief executive. The conglomerate would add, among other interests, a NASCAR racing team and the iconic Liverpool soccer club.

After leaving, the energetic Mr. Lucchino couldn’t stay on the sidelines for long. “I’ve always been kind of a hard charger and if I’m not a hard charger what would I be?” he said. “I don’t know.”

Mr. Lucchino already was a co-owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox, the franchise’s top minor league team. After efforts to build a stadium in Rhode Island fell through, he orchestrated the move to Worcester, where the club began play in the new park in 2021. The following season the WooSox led the minors in ticket sales. He sold the WooSox in November to Diamond Baseball Holdings.

Mr. Lucchino was a three-time survivor of cancer — lymphoma, prostate, and renal. He was a long-time trustee of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he received treatment. Mr. Lucchino also was a major fund-raiser and donor for the Jimmy Fund, and in 2016 was named chairman, which he said was “an honor and a duty.”

Mr. Lucchino, who lived in Chestnut Hill, leaves his, wife, Stacey, daughter, Blair, and son, Davis.

Asked what he thought his legacy would be, Mr. Lucchino said: “He made a difference in cities he lived in.”

John Powers can be reached at [email protected].