Highlighted by a 481-foot home run to dead center at Jacobs Field in Cleveland this past Thursday, the third-longest in the 14-year history of the ballpark, former Indians slugger and current Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez was honored Monday as the American League Player of the Week, the 15th time he has been awarded the honor in his 15-year major league career. Over seven games last week, Ramirez was 11-for-28 with three walks at the plate for an average of .392 while hitting three home runs, driving home ten runs, and crossing the plate seven times; since the All-Star Break, he is hitting .388 with seven homers and 23 RBIs in 18 games.

The 35-year-old slugger, now in his seventh season in Boston with the Red Sox, is also now just 12 home runs shy of reaching the career mark of 500 and currently leads the team with 18 home runs this season; he is also fifth all-time in franchise history with 252 home runs. Ramirez also made use of his glove with a beautiful running catch in left field during the fourth inning at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay on Saturday night, saving at least one run as Boston went on to win 12-6 in extra innings.

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.

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.

As Ted Williams closed one chapter in Red Sox history with his retirement from baseball after the 1960 season, Carl Yastrzemski was ready to write a new one for the franchise the following year. The man who would affectionately be known as “Yaz” by legions of Red Sox followers nearly signed a contract with New York, having been born on Long Island and spending his youth in the shadows on Yankee Stadium, but instead spent all 23 years of his career wearing a Boston uniform. Though he loathed being labeled the next Williams by the media, his impact was almost immediate with the Red Sox; despite the fact that his club never finished above .500 during his first six seasons in Boston, he averaged .294 at the plate, 16 home runs, and 77 RBI each season and was named to the All-Star team three times during that stretch. He was also named team captain during spring training in 1966, the first Red Sox player in 20 years to receive that honor since Bobby Doerr but, as with the comparisons to Williams, it was an honor he accepted reluctantly.

Less than a year later, with Dick Williams in charge of the club, Yastrzemski finally came of age as a leader on his team, though it would be after one of Williams’ first acts as manager, which was to strip the 27-year-old outfielder of his title as captain. Feeling that weight lifted off his shoulders, Yastrzemski took a different approach to his game and spent the off-season focusing on getting in top physical shape. Then, after starting the season off slow at the plate, he received some tips from Doerr, a legendary hitter in his day, which appeared to have a near-immediate impact. After batting .281 with only two home runs and 13 RBI through his first 25 games, Yaz hit at a .346 pace over his next 54 games through the All-Star break 1967 to raise his average to .324, hitting 17 home runs and driving home 43 in that stretch.

His exceptional play at the plate continued through the rest of the season, saving perhaps his best stretch for the final two weeks of the season as the team contended for the pennant; over the team’s final fourteen games, he batted an astonishing .451, getting 23 hits in 51 plate appearances while hitting another five home runs, driving home 16 runs, and crossing the plate 14 times. Not only had his bat been key in Boston winning its first pennant in 21 years, he had finished the season as the league leader in batting average and runs batted in (.326 and 121, respectively) while tying for the home run lead with 44 round-trippers, as Yastrzemski earned the batting Triple Crown and ran away with the American League Most Valuable Player award.

Steady production at the plate proved to be the norm for Yaz through his career; when he finally retired after the 1983 season, the 18-time All-Star finished with a lifetime batting average of .285, having hit better than .300 in six different seasons. He also managed to collect 3,419 hits, sixth all-time in major league history, and hit 452 home runs; as of 2007, he is the only American League player and the fourth player ever to collect 3,000 hits and 400 home runs, joining Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays. He also won seven Gold Gloves as an outfielder between 1963 and 1977, though he also saw many games at first base and, later in his career, as the designated hitter.

Unfortunately, much like Williams, opportunities to shine in October were rare during Yastrzemski’s tenure. Besides 1967, he appeared in baseball’s post-season only one other time with the Red Sox as a member of the 1975 pennant winners and made the most of his opportunity; in the AL championship series against Oakland, he batted .455 with a home run and two RBI while in the World Series, he batted .310 with four RBI. When Yaz finally hung up his cleats, he had played in 3,308 games for Boston, the most appearances by a player in a Red Sox uniform. Elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1989, he is also one of only five former Red Sox players to have his uniform number (8) retired.

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 outfielderManny 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.

In 1966, the Boston Red Sox began the month of July dead last in the American League at 27-47, 22-1/2 games behind first-place Baltimore; now, exactly a year later, the Sox were three games above .500 and faced only a 5-1/2 game deficit with more than half the schedule still ahead of them. Manager Dick Williams was quietly pleased with how his team had persevered through the first few months but also knew that this was a critical point in the season, as other Boston teams in recent years had faired well through the early going, only to fade down the stretch. Still, his players gave him no reason to believe that would be the case in 1967. Over the first few days of the month, the team finished a sweep of the Athletics in Kansas City and opened a series with California by besting the Angels, 9-3; just like that, Boston had made up two games in the standings.

Just as quickly, however, the team hit a bump in the road on the road; after Boston started an arduous two-week road trip that began at the tail end of June by winning five-of-seven, the Angels took the last two games of its series with the Red Sox at Angel Stadium of Anaheim as the visitors fell back to 5-1/2 games out of first place. With a four-game series in Detroit to end the unofficial first half before the All-Star break against the second-place Tigers, Boston hoped to make up ground against a league rival that was also looking to take the lead in the American League standings. Unfortunately, the Red Sox, despite a ninth-inning, three-run rally in the opener to tie the score, ended up on the losing end of a 5-4, 11-inning contest, then proceeded to get shut out the next day in a complete-game effort by Denny McLain, running the deficit to a season-high seven games. Boston only managed to save face the following day by winning the second half of a doubleheader 3-0 behind a strong start by Jim Lonborg, who finished with 11 wins at the All-Star break; the win also snapped a five-game losing streak as the Red Sox limped home still having managed to win six of 13 over two weeks away from Fenway Park.

Just two games above .500 and six games out at the break, Williams’ club had generated little interest at this point to be considered serious contenders as the unofficial second half of the season began. Back at Fenway Park facing Baltimore, Boston began the series as it had ended the first half four days earlier with a split of a doubleheader. The team then won the final two games of its series with the Orioles and won its next two games against Detroit to close out a successful, if somewhat modest 5-1 homestand; along the way, the team also jumped ahead two places in the standings and moved to within 3-1/2 games of first, though that was hardly enough at that point to raise eyebrows around baseball. However, with Boston going on the road and sweeping a brief two-game series in Baltimore, the Red Sox not only had a six-game winning streak under their belts, the club had suddenly jumped to within one-and-a-half games out of first, the closest the team had been all season to the top spot in the league.

Boston next traveled to Cleveland for a four-game series at Cleveland Stadium to complete the road trip, hoping that the team’s recent stretch of good fortune would follow. The Red Sox easily won the first two games to run their winning streak to eight games and, even more importantly, put themselves in second place, just a half-game out of first place. Then, with a Sunday doubleheader scheduled for the final day of the series, the Red Sox swept the Indians 8-5 and 5-1 and put themselves 12 games over .500 thanks to a ten-game winning streak. Returning to Logan Airport that night, thousands of fans caught up in the club’s sudden success flocked to the airport, surrounding the team’s plane and spilling onto the runway as the Red Sox received a hero’s welcome back to Boston.

A 6-4 loss to the Angels to begin the next series at home not only ended the team’s winning streak but also pushed Boston two games out of first as the White Sox swept a series against the hapless Indians in Chicago, but the club’s winning ways continued as the team won the final two games of the series to reduce the deficit back to one game. The Red Sox then finished the month on somewhat of a down note, losing three-of-five to Minnesota at Fenway Park although winning the final game of the series 4-0 behind Lee Strange’s impressive complete game shutout in which he retired the first 20 batters he faced. Even with the series loss to the Twins to finish the month, the Red Sox had gone 19-10 in July to jump from 5-1/2 games to just two games out of first and, for the first time in years, Boston appeared to be in a pennant race going into the final two months of the season.

02 July 1986 - Twenty-one years ago today, Roger Clemens, who had gone 14-0 with one no-decision in his first 15 starts, loses for the first time during the 1986 regular season in an eventual 14-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park. In his first full season with Boston after going 16-9 in 36 starts over the previous two years, the young pitcher, nicknamed Rocket, began the year by winning his first five starts before being saddled with a no-decision on 09 May against the Athletics in Oakland, a game eventually won by the Red Sox in extra innings. Clemens then rattled off nine straight wins, highlighted by a complete game, two-hit performance against the Rangers while Boston cruised to a 7-1 win over Texas.

During the streak, he had allowed just 82 hits and 33 runs in 123-2/3 innings pitched, with five complete games and one shutout; he also posted a 2.18 ERA while striking out 125 batters, including a major league record 20 batters on 29 April against Seattle at Fenway. The 14 wins to begin the season remains a franchise record and are just two shy of the club record for consecutive victories held by Smoky Joe Wood, who had a stretch of 16 wins without a loss in 1912. Clemens would eventually finish the 1986 season with a 24-4 record, winning not only the American League Cy Young Award but MVP honors as well.