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!

Two years after being drafted by Boston out of high school, Rico Petrocelli made his Red Sox debut at Fenway Park in late September 1963, hitting an RBI double in his first at-bat in his only appearance that season. Six foot tall and just a shade under 200 pounds, Boston recognized that he would add some pop to the lineup once he was ready to be an everyday major league ballplayer, so the Brooklyn native spent 1964 playing for Triple-A Seattle before he finally made the team for good in the spring of 1965. In his rookie season, he managed just a .232 average on a team but also clocked 13 home runs and knocked in 33 runs on a club that hit rock bottom with 100 games lost. He also showed solid play at short; even with 18 errors and a .958 fielding percentage, the unusual combination of power and glove work normally uncommon among infielders made him a valuable commodity for the franchise.

In 1966, the second-year player hit another 18 home runs, including two grand slams, and drove home 59 base runners; the following season, as his team with 100-to-1 odds to win the pennant shocked fans and baseball alike, Petrocelli batted a respectable .259 average while hitting 17 home runs, driving in 66, and making the first of two All-Star appearances. He also managed a fielding percentage of .970 in 141 appearances while also assisting in 73 double plays; he even made the final out of the season, catching a soft pop-up in shallow left that clinched the pennant for Boston. His efforts were enough to earn consideration for the American League Most Valuable Player, though he finished well behind teammate Carl Yastrzemski for that honor.

Petrocelli continued to flex his impressive power at the plate; in 1969, he batted a career-high .297 while amassing 40 home runs, then a record for a shortstop, and drove in 97 runs while crossing the plate 92 times. He also improved defensively, too, committing just 14 errors, which tied a then-record at that position, and assisting in 103 double plays. Over the next two seasons, he would collect another 57 home runs and 192 RBI and also began the transition from shortstop to third base; when the Red Sox signed future Hall of Fame player Luis Aparicio prior to the 1971 season, Petrocelli became the full-time third baseman in Boston and responded by making just 11 errors and leading the league in fielding percentage at his new position.

Though he continued to perform well in the field, his offensive numbers took a sudden downward turn after that season. In 1972, his home run total fell from 28 the year before to just 15, and his batting average was back down to just .240. Then, injuries began to take him away from the game; elbow problems in 1974 caused him to miss time at the start as well as the end of that season, though he still managed 13 home runs and 76 RBI. The following year, Petrocelli began the season hitting only .136 through the first month of the season and didn’t stroke his first home run until the middle of May; a leg injury halfway through August then put him on the disabled list for better than two weeks and finished the season with just seven home runs and 59 RBI to his credit, totals well below his career average. He would play one last season with Boston in 1976 and, upon his release before the end of spring training in 1977, finish his 13-year career with 210 home runs, 773 RBI, and a .251 batting average along with the recognition as one of the best power-hitting infielders in Red Sox history.

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.

18 June 1975 - On this day thirty-two years ago, Boston Red Sox rookie sensation Fred Lynn drives in ten runs with three home runs, a triple, and a single in a 15-1 blowout of Detroit at Tiger Stadium. In the first inning, with his team already up 1-0 and first baseman Carl Yastrzemski on second, Lynn hits a two-run home run off Tigers pitcher Joe Coleman to put the visitors up by three. One inning later, with two men on, Lynn hits yet another round-tripper off Coleman to plate Yastrzemski and shortstop Rick Burleson and make it a 7-1 lead. With Coleman out after just two innings of work, Lerrin LaGrow is brought in to try and tame the young outfielder, but Lynn hits a long triple that comes three feet short of leaving the yard for the third time in as many innings to plate two more runs and give Boston a commanding 11-1 lead. In Lynn’s next at-bat in the fifth, he lines out to second to briefly quiet his bat, but singles in his next trip to the plate to give him four hits on the day and caps off his evening with a three-run home run in the top of the ninth to finish the scoring. With five hits to his credit to raise his average 15 points to .352, the 10 RBI for Lynn ties a franchise record and the 16 total bases ties an American League record.

Lynn would finish the 1975 season with a .331 average, 21 home runs, 105 RBI, and 103 runs scored to not only unanimously capture AL Rookie of the Year honors but the Most Valuable Player award as well. He would also bat .306 with a home run and seven RBI in the post-season for the Red Sox as the team went seven games with Cincinnati in the World Series. The California native would play six-plus seasons for Boston, then play the rest of his career for the California Angels, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers, and San Diego Padres before nagging injuries brought an end to his career after 17 seasons in Major League Baseball.

Signed as an amateur free agent in 1963, Jim Lonborg was pitching for the Boston Red Sox less than two years later, as the Stanford University graduate left spring training in 1965 as part of the team’s starting rotation. A fast start out of the gate that included two wins against New York had him at 4-2 with a 2.48 ERA at the end of May, but the young right hander would struggle the rest of the way along with a club that finished with 100 losses; at the end of his rookie campaign, the 23-year-old had posted a record of 9-17 with a 4.47 ERA in 31 starts. Fortunately for Lonborg, as the season came to a close, so did the end of an era as the insufferable general manager Pinky Higgins was replaced by relative visionary Dick O’Connell; whereas the potential of a player like Lonborg might have been shipped elsewhere for an overpriced veteran by Higgins, O’Connell preached patience and persistence in developing raw talent that might someday bring a franchise back to prominence. Although 1966 would not be much of an improvement over the previous season for the club, under the tutelage of pitching coach Sal Maglie, Lonborg bettered himself as a future big-league pitcher while going 10-10 in 23 starts.

When 1967 rolled around, Lonborg had two years of experience under his belt, ready to take the ball as Boston’s Opening Day starter; the day would end with a 5-4 victory for the Red Sox over the White Sox at Fenway Park and Lonborg’s first of 22 wins that season. Five straight wins between 14 May and 02 June had him at 7-1 with a 2.85 ERA and made him an easy selection for his first and only All-Star appearance. He averaged better than eight strikeouts per nine innings over the course of the season, striking out a season-high 13 in a complete-game shutout against Kansas City in late April, and struck out ten or more eight times to finish with a league-best 246 strikeouts. The imposing 6-foot-5 pitcher also led the league in hit batsmen with 19 as Maglie had taught him to pitch inside to keep hitters honest, a historic advantage to pitchers at Fenway. On the last day of the season, with Boston needing a win to at least force a tie for first place, Lonborg made his last start perhaps his most memorable; he went the distance and allowed just three runs on seven hits, four walks, and five strikeouts as the Red Sox won 5-3 over Minnesota and the delirious Fenway faithful celebrated by storming the field and lifting him into the air. For his efforts that season, Lonborg easily walked away with the first American League Cy Young Award (the honor had previously been bestowed since its inception in 1956 to a single major league pitcher) as well as enough votes to finish sixth for Most Valuable Player honors.

Unfortunately, the aura that surrounded the success of that season quickly faded for the young right hander; just over two months after the conclusion of the 1967 World Series, as he enjoy a day on the slopes at a Lake Tahoe ski resort, Lonborg tore ligaments in his right knee as he made his final run of the day. Though neither he or the Red Sox showed much initial concern, the extent of the injury was enough to keep him out for almost the first two months of the season before he returned to action as a starter in mid-June of 1968. The effects of the accident were immediately apparent; on the heels of a break-out season, Lonborg would win just six games in 17 starts as Boston failed to defend the pennant. Over the next few seasons, Lonborg would continue to struggle to reclaim the magic of that dream season; he missed time at the start of 1969 and, despite a 6-0 start, won only one more that season and finished at 7-11. Then, after a promising start in 1970, he would last through just the first quarter of the campaign before being shipped to Triple-A Louisville with arm troubles, making just two more appearances in relief for the rest of the season. Finally, after more troubles limited him to 26 starts in 1971, despite 10 wins to his credit, the Red Sox made the decision to part ways with the seemingly ineffective Lonborg and traded him to Milwaukee in a huge ten-player trade.

However, to the disbelief of many, Lonborg stuck around for another seven-plus seasons in the majors and won an additional 107 games. With the Brewers in 1972, he made 30 starts and won 14 games with a career-low 2.83 ERA. The following season, having been traded to Philadelphia, he won another 13 games, then made an impressive 39 starts in 1974 and won 17 games. Two years later, he surprised baseball yet again with another 18 games in 32 starts and collected 11 more wins in 1977 but, within two years, he was done, making just one start in four appearances in 1979 before he put his glove away for good and finishing with 175 wins and a 3.86 ERA over a 15-year career. Today, after attending and graduating from Tufts University Dental School in Boston, Lonborg practices dentistry, not too far from where he pitched for seven seasons with the Red Sox.

With Saturday night’s 4-3, 10-inning win against Arizona, the Boston Red Sox are now 1-2 in 2007 in extra frames; the only other two games this season that took more than nine innings were identical 5-4, eleven-inning losses to Oakland, with one coming at home on 01 May and the second coming last Monday night at McAfee Coliseum. The team’s first ever extra-inning contest also coincided with the first win in franchise history and the first game to go extra innings in American League history, a ten-inning affair against the Athletics in Philadelphia in which Boston won, 8-6, on 30 April 1901. Cy Young earned the decision, the first of 192 wins for the legendary pitcher in eight seasons with the team.

The longest game in franchise history occurred on 01 September 1906 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds against the Philadelphia Athletics in which the visitors won 4-1 in a contest that lasted 24 innings and took four hours and 47 minutes to complete. Both starting pitchers, Jack Coombs of Philadelphia and Joe Harris of the Red Sox, went the distance and not a single run was scored from the sixth inning on until Harris gave up a two-out triple to Socks Seybold, scoring two runs, and then yielded another triple to Danny Murphy to score the final run for the visitors. The 24-inning contest is the fourth-longest in major league baseball history, with Brooklyn and Boston of the National League going 26 innings in a game that ended in a 1-1 tie and two other teams needing 25 innings to decide the final score in 1974 and 1985, respectively.

The longest game in Fenway Park history happened on 03 September 1981 in a contest against Seattle; after 19 innings, the score was tied 7-7 before the game was halted due to the 1:00 AM curfew. The next day, the game resumed before the regularly-scheduled contest and Mariners center fielder Joe Simpson hit a two-out RBI triple off Bob Stanley in the top of the 20th inning to give the visitors an 8-7 lead. Even so, Boston had a chance to tie the score in the bottom half of the inning, with the Red Sox loading the bases with two outs, but reliever Jim Beattie managed to get slugger Jim Rice to ground into a force-out at second base to end the game.

As a final note, the longest extra-inning victory for Boston was another 20-inning affair against the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969 on 27 July at Sick’s Stadium. The game was tied at one run each after nine complete; ten frames later, an RBI double from Carl Yastrzemski gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead. However, the Pilots would respond with a two-out RBI from catcher Jim Pagliaroni in the bottom of the 19th inning off Jim Lonborg, Boston’s eighth pitcher of the game, to send the game to another inning. Finally, with Rico Petrocelli on first, Red Sox outfielder Joe Lahoud hit a two-run home run in the top of the 20th and Boston would score one more to take a 5-2 lead. That was more than enough for Lonborg, who would yield yet another run but also record the final three outs to give his team the victory.

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.

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who struggled through his first month in the major leagues, broke through in his second month, batting .415 in May to earn American League Rookie of the Month honors from Major League Baseball. Bolstered by a ten-game hitting streak to finish the month at .308, Pedroia now stands at .331 with two home runs, 16 RBI, and 19 runs scored. Pedroia is the second consecutive Red Sox first-year player to earn this honor; reliever Hideki Okajima was named April’s MLB Rookie of the Month after allowing just one run on five hits, walking three batters, and striking out 17 in a dozen appearances. The veteran Japanese ballplayer also received votes for last month’s honor after making three saves for the Red Sox in May.

Pedroia was also named American League Player of the Week ending 03 June 2007. In six games, he posted 14 hits, including six doubles, for a .609 batting average, a .870 slugging percentage, and a .640 on-base percentage; he also scored three runs and tallied six RBI. During the recent three-game weekend series versus the rival New York Yankees, Pedroia went 8-for-14 at the plate with five RBI.

Drafted in the second round of the 2004 amateur draft, the Arizona State product rose quickly through the organization, getting to Triple-A Pawtucket by mid-2005 before being promoted late last season to the major league roster, making his debut on 22 August on the road against the Angels and finishing the season with a .191 average, two home runs, and seven RBI. Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who stuck with the 23-year-old second baseman as he batted just .158 through his first 14 games of the season, had nothing but praise for Pedroia:

When he was struggling, he didn’t put his head down; he’s got that fighter mentality. He goes to the cage every day. He had a lot of long sessions with [hitting coach Dave Magadan]. He got it in the cage, but he was having a hard time taking it to the field. Then it started translating into the game. You could see him getting more confident, which he should.[1]

[1] Pedroia named AL Rookie of the Month. MLB.com, 04 June 2007.

Entering the month of June, the 1967 Boston Red Sox were two games over .500 and trailed first-place Detroit by 4-1/2 games; that was in sharp contrast to the same point the previous season, when they had been nine games under .500 and 11-1/2 games out of first place, doomed to finish once again in the American League cellar. In Boston, the media and the fans were surprised at the team’s sudden success, but perhaps that had to do with the fact that, with the everyday business of the team no longer under the control of Tom Yawkey’s front office hacks, general manager Dick O’Connell had the team and the manager needed to help shed the losing reputation that had become so accepted to the Boston faithful. It wasn’t that the team gained any ground in the standings in June; in fact, the team lost ground, falling as far as seven games behind first on 28 June before ending the month 5-1/2 games behind Chicago. The Red Sox also failed to put together any sort of stretch of winning games; the longest win streak was a mere three games. Even so, there were plenty of signs that the team had the potential to be more than just another also-ran at the end of the season; after playing to empty stands for years, the Red Sox watched as older fans returned and a new generation arrived to see Boston suddenly not just winning, but contending.

Most apparent was that O’Connell’s efforts to develop his young players through patience and persistence had finally been rewarded. One example was pitcher Jim Lonborg; with two years of experience under his belt pitching in Boston, the tall right hander won his first start in June, marking his seventh win in 11 games, a 2-1 win over the Indians in Cleveland, in which he had allowed a season-low three hits while striking out seven in a complete game effort. O’Connell was also willing to make mid-season moves to better the team as needed without making major concessions. On 03 June, the team picked up veteran utility player Jerry Adair, who would later be referred to as “the Red Sox secret weapon”[1] by manager Dick Williams and compared to the Boston Celtics’ “sixth man” coming off the bench;[2] the next day, Boston would trade for pitcher George Bell, a nine-year veteran and two-time All-Star with Cleveland, who would win five starts in his first month with the club, including three complete game efforts. Even team veterans responded to the winning attitude that filtered through the clubhouse. After six seasons of watching his efforts go for naught, Carl Yastrzemski immediately recognized that the team was building to win now rather than in the future and played like a man possessed; in June, he responded by batting .381 with eight home runs and 22 RBI in 28 games played.

More remarkable was the team’s knack to grind out some exciting wins. On 09 June, trailing 6-2 against Washington, Boston scored four runs in the fifth inning as Joe Foy and Reggie Smith hit back-to-back home runs and Yastrzemski hit a third one two batters later to tie the score at six. Yastrzemski and Foy would each hit another home run and the Red Sox would go on to win, 8-7. One week later, on 16 June at home against first-place Chicago after splitting the first two games of the series, the Red Sox and White Sox went 11 innings and the visitors appeared to have the game in hand after scoring a run in the top of the frame, followed by two quick outs for Boston. However, after Foy singled to left, a slumping Tony Conigliaro came to the plate and drove a pitch into the screen above the left field wall, giving the Red Sox an impressive walk-off win in front of 17,000 fans at Fenway Park. With six wins in its final nine games in June, Boston would finish the month at 37-34; though the team had still not seriously contended for the top spot in the American League, it was evident to many that, for the first time in years, the Red Sox were in a pennant race.

[1],[2] Stout and Johnson, Red Sox Century: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Most Storied Franchise, Expanded and Updated (Sport in the Global Society). Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2005. 544 pp.

Trot Nixon and Dustin Pedroia crossed paths briefly last season when the latter was called up late in the season and the former played his final games with the Boston Red Sox. This season, Pedroia, the Opening Day starter for Boston at second base, started his rookie season batting just .158 through his first 14 games of the season with just six hits and no runs scored or delivered. Pedroia’s poor start was tempered by Alex Cora’s hot start; through 01 May, the veteran utility infielder was batting .360 with two home runs and seven RBI while manager Terry Francona preached patience with the 23-year-old rookie thrust onto the biggest stage of his young life. Since then, management’s patience has paid off; after batting .415 in May, bolstered by a ten-game hitting streak to finish the month, Pedroia now stands at .308 with two home runs, 11 RBI, and 17 runs scored. He’s also shown excellent defensive range in the field, having committed just two errors while helping to turn 20 double plays.

Dustin’s slow start and quick recovery can be likened to Nixon’s rookie campaign in 1999 after the former first-round draft pick enjoyed two cups of coffee with the parent club in 1996 and 1998. After just ten games playing right field with Boston, Nixon was batting a paltry .061 with only two hits total and was barely above .100 at the end of April. However, as Francona did this season, then-manager Jimy Williams stayed on course with the 25-year-old Nixon and he responded by batting .320 in May to raise his average to .248 with two home runs, 10 RBI, and 18 runs scored, almost identical to Pedroia’s first two months as a starter. At the end of 1999, Nixon has recovered enough to finish with a .270 batting average, 15 home runs, 52 RBI, and 67 runs scored, along with the reputation of being one of the team’s original “Dirt Dogs.”