Tag: red sox

Today In History – Switch-Hitting Smith Helps BoSox Sweep

20 August 1967 – On this day forty years ago, Red Sox outfielder Reggie Smith hits three home runs in two games at Fenway Park as Boston not only sweeps a doubleheader against California, 12-2 and 9-8, but completes a four-game series sweep against the Angels. The four wins also avenges a sweep at the hands of the Angels in Anaheim one week earlier and moves the surging Red Sox to within 1-1/2 games of first place in the American League, but comes at a price; Tony Conigliaro is beaned by a Jack Hamilton pitch in the first game of the series and the young outfielder will miss not only the rest of the season but the entire 1968 campaign as well.

In the first game, Smith becomes the first player in franchise history to hit home runs from both sides of the plate in a single game; his first, a three-run shot, comes in the first inning off left-handed starting pitcher George Brunet and the second, a two-run blast, comes in the sixth off right-hander Pete Cimino. Rico Petrocelli and Carl Yastrzemski also homer as Boston scores five runs in the first and six runs in the sixth to make it a laugher.

In the nightcap, the Angels take a commanding 8-0 lead before Smith hits his third home run of the day, a solo shot off Angels starter Jim McGlothlin, with one out in the fourth inning. The Red Sox then score three in the fifth on Yastrzemski’s second home run of the day and four in the sixth to tie the score at eight runs apiece; third baseman Jerry Adair then completes the scoring with a solo home run into the netting above the Green Monster. In the ninth inning, the Angels attempt to salvage at least one game in the series thanks to a single and a double to open the frame that put runners on second and third. However, reliever Jose Santiago manages to pitch out of the jam by inducing a groundout to second base, a strikeout, and a international walk followed by a groundout into a force at second.

Did You Know? – Jack Wilson

Former Red Sox pitcher Jack Wilson may not be a name familiar even to die-hard Fenway fanatics and his career hardly made a blip on the radar as a professional ballplayer. In nine big-league seasons, seven with the Red Sox between 1935 and 1941, the University of Portland, Oregon product was 68-72 with a 4.59 ERA and 590 strikeouts. His best season, arguably, came in 1937 when he went 16-10 with an ERA of 3.70 in 51 appearances, splitting time between the starting rotation and the bullpen as he also saved seven games at a time when this was not a recognized statistic.

He may be better remembered, however, for what he did with his bat rather than with his arm. In September of 1935, Boston trailed Washington 7-0 in the first game of a Labor Day doubleheader at Fenway Park before the team rallied to tie the score at 8-8 after eight innings. Wilson then capped the comeback with a game-winning solo home run to dead center field, his first-ever major league home run, as the home team won by a final of 9-8 in 11 innings. Nearly five years later, pitching in the second game of a June 1940 doubleheader at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Wilson helped his own cause with two home runs as the visitors collected five home runs and 20 total hits en route to a 14-5 rout of the White Sox. These would be the only three home runs out of 15 extra-base hits that Wilson, a .199 hitter, would manage in 413 career at-bats.

Today In History – Dom DiMaggio’s Hitting Streak Ends

09 August 1949 – On this day 58 years ago, Red Sox outfielder Dom DiMaggio’s franchise-record 34-game hitting streak comes to an end as he goes 0-for-5 at the plate against Yankee hurler Vic Raschi, but Boston still wins the game 6-3 in front of more than 35,000 fans at Fenway Park behind eventual 23-game-winner Ellis Kinder. With one last chance to extend the streak in the bottom of the eighth inning, Dom’s line drive to center field is caught on the shoestrings by his own brother, Joe DiMaggio, who today still holds the major league record for the longest consecutive-game hitting streak at 56.

Known to teammates as “The Little Professor,” the five-foot-nine bespectacled outfielder looked more like he belonged in front of a classroom than on a baseball diamond, yet he was perhaps one of the best to play the outfield for Boston. Seven times, DiMaggio was named to the All-Star game during his 11 seasons in Boston, sandwiched around three years of service with the Coast Guard during the second World War. DiMaggio would also hit in 27 straight games in 1951 and, used primarily as a leadoff hitter, scored 100 or more runs seven times. Though his numbers were not enough to earn consideration for Hall of Fame induction, he was part of the original class of former players inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 1995.

Did You Know? – Babe Ruth’s Missing Home Run

Through Sunday, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds has amassed 753 home runs in his career, two round trips shy of Henry “Hank” Aaron’s record for most home runs by a Major League Baseball player (former Japanese Central League baseball player Sadaharu Oh holds the professional baseball record, having hit 868 home runs for the Yomiuri Giants). Last year, on 28 May 2006, Bonds passed former Red Sox and Yankees baseball great Babe Ruth for second-place all-time, notching home run number 715 in the sixth inning off former Red Sox pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim of Colorado in San Francisco as the Giants lost 6-3 to the Rockies.

Then again, had one of modern baseball’s rules been observed early in Ruth’s career, it might have been necessary for Bonds to hit one more home run to pass the legendary ballplayer. On 08 July 1918, with the score tied in the tenth inning at Fenway Park, Ruth ended the game for the Red Sox with a walk-off hit over the outfield fence. Unfortunately, prior to 1931, as soon as the first run necessary to win the game scored, the ball was ruled dead, and the batter was credited only with the number of bases needed to drive in the winning run. In this instance, Red Sox center field Amos Strunk had already reached first base earlier in the inning when Ruth stepped up to the plate; after his hit left the yard, the umpires awarded an RBI triple to Ruth as Strunk crossed home plate one base ahead of “The Bambino” with the deciding run. This was the only instance in The Babe’s career in which this happened, and several other players from that period also lost home runs in this fashion.

In 1931, in part due to the frequency and popularity of Ruth’s home runs, the rule was changed to allow the entire play to be completed, with the ball ruled dead and all runners given the opportunity to move freely around the bases, which in turn allowed for the batter to be credited with a home run and all runs batted in, depending on the number of players on base. To put in perspective today, if the original rule still applied today, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz would have had three game-winning home runs for Boston since 2004 and his two game-winners from the 2004 post-season also changed to triples. As an added note, baseball historians did make an attempt in the 1960s to have the records of those who played prior to 1931 updated to reflect this rule change, but Major League Baseball decided to leave them as they still stand today.

Today In History – Rick Ferrell Homers Off Wes Ferrell

19 July 1933 – On this day seventy-four years ago, Red Sox catcher Rick Ferrell hits a home run at Fenway Park off his brother Wes Ferrell, who is pitching for the visiting Cleveland Indians. However, Wes will return the favor with a home run of his own later in the game as the Indians edge the Red Sox, 8-7.

Rick, a future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, played 18 seasons in the major leagues, including five seasons with Boston, batting .302 with 16 home runs and 240 in a Red Sox uniform. He was named to the All-Star game four times with Boston, including as a starter at the inaugural Mid-Summer Classic in 1933, just two months after coming to the Red Sox in a trade with the St. Louis Browns.  Younger brother Wes, who played 15 seasons in the majors, came to Boston himself less than a year later from Cleveland and twice won 20 or more games in four seasons with the Red Sox, including a career-high 25 games in 1935. Ferrell was also one of a select few pitchers who knew how to wield a bat; he set a major-league record for career home runs by a pitcher with 38, two more than his older brother Rick managed, including 17 with the Red Sox.

Despite the abilities of both players and in part due to Wes’s pronounced temperament, often leading to fiery confrontations with then-manager Joe Cronin, Boston traded Wes and Rick as a package to Washington in June of 1937, ending the Ferrell brothers’ association with the Red Sox.

Did You Know? – Red Sox All-Star Game Final Vote Winners

With 4.3 million votes cast in his favor over four days of online balloting on MLB.com, Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Hideki Okajima became the final player selected to represent the American League at tonight’s All-Star Game in San Francisco. The first-year pitcher, who played for 12 seasons in Japan, beat out fellow pitcher Jeremy Bonderman of the Detroit Tigers for the honor.[1] He also became the sixth Red Sox player to join the All-Star team alongside pitchers Josh Beckett and Jonathan Papelbon, first baseman David Ortiz, third baseman Mike Lowell, and outfielder Manny Ramirez.

Okajima also becomes the third Red Sox player selected to the All-Star game through the All-Star Final Vote process. In 2002, the first year that the selection was made by the fans, former outfielder Johnny Damon made his first of two eventual trips with Boston to the All-Star game; he would enter the game in the fifth as a defensive replacement and go 1-for-3 with a run scored and a stolen base at Miller Park in Milwaukee. The following season, the honor went to catcher Jason Varitek who made his first All-Star squad but never entered the game at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Both players would make their second appearance with the Red Sox at the Mid-Summer Classic in 2005 and get the nod from the fans as starters for the American League squad along with Ortiz and Ramirez in the starting lineup at Comerica Park in Detroit.

[1] Hideki Okajima wins 2007 American League Monster All-Star Final Vote. MLB.com, 05 July 2007.

Did You Know? – Don Baylor

By the early 1980s, former outfielder Don Balyor had been regulated to the designated hitter’s role by the California Angels and remained in that role for three seasons with the New York Yankees between 1983 and 1985. Less than two weeks before the start of the 1986 season, Baylor was traded straight up for Boston Red Sox designated hitter Mike Easler. In the end, Baylor batted just .238 in 160 games played, but he also led the club in home runs with 31, drove home 94 runs, and provided some veteran leadership in the clubhouse as the Red Sox ran away with the American League East division title. The next season, he cracked another 16 home runs and drove in 57 more runs before being traded away to Minnesota in late August.

He also set a record that possibly very few Red Sox batters aspire to hold: given that he loved to lean out over the plate, daring opposing pitchers to throw inside to him, he was hit by 35 pitches over the course of the 1986 regular season, an American League record. Only one other player since 1900 has been hit by more pitches in a single season and, until 2005, he owned the career mark for a major league player, having been plunked 267 times over 19 big-league seasons. To put in perspective another way, Baylor ranks number one and number two in Red Sox franchise history for the single-season record, having been hit another 24 times in 1987. He is also third all-time, tied with Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk, for the most times hit by a pitch in a Boston uniform and sits only twelve behind the Red Sox career leader, Mo Vaughn. Perhaps even more interesting is that he reached his personal mark in only 1,096 plate appearances for Boston, less than a quarter of the number that both Fisk and Vaughn had with the Red Sox. Ouch!

Did You Know? – Ground-Rule Triple at Fenway Park?

In baseball, a ground-rule double is usually called when a batted ball bounces in fair territory on the field of play and then goes into the stands, in which case the batter and any runners are awarded two bases. These can also be called when a ball in play hits or gets lodged in an on-field obstruction; an example of this would be a ball that rolls under the canvas that covers the tarp cylinder at Fenway Park in the right field corner, known as “Canvas Alley.” Some time ago, a story began to circulate, thanks in part to Boston-area television sports reporters, that Fenway was the only ball park in Major League Baseball that included in its ground rules a ruling for a ground-rule triple. Apparently, there was a belief that if a batted ball strikes the ladder on the Green Monster during play, the batter would be awarded three bases. This has also been given credibility by several respected online sources to further perpetuate this belief.

For several years before the Monster Seats appeared above the infamous green left field wall, the Red Sox erected a 23-foot-high net above it in 1936 that stretched its entire length to offer some protection to businesses on Lansdowne Street from home run balls hit over the 37-foot-high structure. To enable groundskeepers to climb up to the netting and retrieve any balls that landed there, a ladder was installed that starts near the upper-left corner of the manual scoreboard, 13 feet above the ground. Once the Monster Seats were installed in 2003, the ladder was no longer a necessity but the team left it in place as a visible reminder of a “forgotten” feature of the ball park.

In truth, hitting the ladder with a batted ball only matters if the ball strikes the top of it and then goes out of the park, in which case the batter along with any base runners are awarded two bases; otherwise, the ball stays in play and batters and base runners alike can advance on their own free will. According to Fenway Park ground rules listed at the official online site for the Red Sox, there is no mention of a ground-rule triple, thereby making it merely an urban myth.

Today In History – Red Sox Hammer Browns for 29 Runs

08 June 1950 – On this day fifty-seven years ago at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox embarrass the St. Louis Browns, 29-4. The Sox score eight runs in the second inning, five in the third, seven in the fourth, two in the fifth, two in the seventh, and five in the eighth. Second baseman Bobby Doerr hits 3 home runs and drives home eight, rookie sensation Walt Dropo hits another two home runs, drives home seven, and crosses the plate five times, while slugger Ted Williams strokes two long balls and driving home five. In fact, each of these players connect for a home run in the eighth inning alone. Pitcher Chuck Stobbs walks four times to tie a record for pitchers at the plate and right fielder Al Zarilla ties a record with four doubles in one game while also stroking a single in nine at-bats, though he is unable to add to the scoring barrage and fails to drive home a single run. In addition, outfielder Clyde Vollmer, batting leadoff, goes to the plate eight times in 8 innings‚ the only time this has happened in history.

Boston sets several marks in the game, including: most runs scored (29), most RBI in one game (also 29), most players scoring four or more runs (4), most players scoring at least three runs (7), most total bases (60), most hits (28), and most extra-base hits (17). Another mark is set of most extra bases on long hits (32) in a game‚ and the most extra bases on long hits in consecutive games (51). The previous day, the Red Sox had beaten the Browns 20-4 on 23 hits, setting other records for most runs scored in consecutive games at 49 and most hits in consecutive games at 51. The two games were part of a nine-game stretch to begin the month of June in which Boston would score 119 runs. The Browns, who would later relocate to Baltimore after the 1953, prove to be easy prey for the Red Sox that season as Boston would score 216 runs and finish with 19 wins in 22 games against St. Louis. At season’s end, Boston’s potent offense would score 1,027 total runs in 1950 and bat a remarkable .302 as a team.

Did You Know? – Hot Starts in Red Sox History

Through Sunday, Boston’s record is 30-13 on the regular season, which puts the team 10-1/2 games in front of second-place Baltimore and New York for the lead in the American League East. However, believe it or not, this only ties the second-best record to start a season to this point. In 2002, Boston also began the season at 30-13 through 22 May but, to that point of the season, the Red Sox were only one game in front of the second-place Yankees, who had started 31-16. Two days earlier, Boston had improved its fast start to 30-11 after thumping the Chicago White Sox 9-0 at Fenway Park behind Derek Lowe’s eight-inning masterpiece on the mound and home runs from Jason Varitek and Shea Hillenbrand, but had dropped the final two games of the series. Boston would go on finish at 93-69 in skipper Grady Little’s first year as manager but 10-1/2 games behind eventual division champion New York.

In 1946, Boston’s record after 43 games of play was an amazing 34-9, in part thanks to a team-record 15-game winning streak between 25 April and 10 May of that season, which put their record to that point at an unbelieveable 21-3. The Red Sox had gone on to win another 13 of 19 and put themselves seven games in front of second-place New York. Boston would finish the season at 104-50, the second-best record in team history behind the 1912 club that had won 105 games and the World Series, and easily won the American League pennant by 12 games over Detroit and 17 games over New York. In contrast, the team’s worst record after 43 games was 8-35 in 1932 on a club that would finish with 111 losses that season, a franchise record for futility.