April 10, 1968: Carl Yastrzemski homers twice on Opening Day as Red Sox begin AL pennant defense

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Earl Wilson homered on Opening Day 1968 against his former club, the Boston Red Sox, but Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski upstaged Wilson with two late-game home runs, including an inside-the-park homer, as Boston pulled away for a 7-3 win at Tiger Stadium.

The start of the 1968 season was delayed a day due to the funeral of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in Memphis on April 4.1 Detroit – which was in the fourth month of a newspaper strike – maintained a 7:00 P.M. curfew, but some 41,429 packed Tiger Stadium, around 80 percent of capacity, for the Wednesday afternoon game.

The visiting Red Sox were reigning American League champions, though they had lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.2 This game offered a fresh start for Tigers manager Mayo Smith; Detroit had lost the AL pennant to the Red Sox by only one game.3

The Tigers’ Wilson, a 33-year-old right-hander, had led the majors with 22 wins in 1967. He had begun his major-league career in 1959 as only the second Black player in Red Sox franchise history.4 A June 1966 trade to the Tigers ended Wilson’s Boston tenure, which included a 1962 no-hitter of the Los Angeles Angels, the first no-hitter by a Black pitcher in American or National League history.5

Wilson came into the game with a 5-0 lifetime record against Boston. He struck out the first two Red Sox batters, then got Yastrzemski, the reigning AL MVP and the 1967 Triple Crown winner, to pop up to shortstop.

Dick Williams returned as Red Sox manager and named 28-year-old left-hander Dick Ellsworth as his starter. It was Ellsworth’s debut with Boston, and his first AL start. The Red Sox had acquired him in a three-player deal with the Philadelphia Phillies in December 1967. He had compiled a record of 90-117 over nine NL seasons, primarily with the Chicago Cubs, but his solid ERA of 3.70 for perennial losing teams in Chicago suggested potential for greater success. First baseman Mickey Stanley led off with a single but never got as far as second base.

The first runs of the game came in the top of the second. Reggie Smith led off with a single. Right fielder Joe Lahoud, playing in his first major-league game, drew a one-out walk. Rico Petrocelli doubled into the left-field corner, driving in both baserunners. 2-0, Red Sox.

Tigers catcher Bill Freehan led off the home half of the second with a double, but was unable to advance as Ellsworth struck out two of the next three batters and induced a groundout to shortstop in between.

The Red Sox added a third run in the top of the third. Second baseman Mike Andrews singled to left. He took second on an infield single by third baseman Dalton Jones. When Yastrzemski lifted a fly ball to right field, Andrews tagged and took third base. With Reggie Smith at bat, Jones stole second base. Smith then flied out to right field, deep enough for Andrews to tag and score.

The first batter in the third inning for Detroit was Earl Wilson, who swung at Ellsworth’s first pitch and got the Tigers on the board with a 450-foot home run into the upper deck in left-center.6 It was the 27th career home run for Wilson, who hit 35 in his 11-season career as one of baseball’s most prolific power-hitting pitchers.7 A couple of singles followed, interspersed with outs, all three recorded by Lahoud in right field.

Lahoud led off the fourth by singling for his first big-league hit but never got to second. As in the second inning, Ellsworth recorded two strikeouts with a groundout in between.

It was one-two-three for both teams in the fifth inning. The score remained 3-1, Boston.

The Sox added a fourth run, and then a fifth, in the top of the sixth. Reggie Smith led off with a ground-rule double. First baseman George Scott singled to center, Smith taking third base. Lahoud walked, loading the bases with nobody out.8 Petrocelli singled to left, all runners advancing just one base as Smith scored. It was Petrocelli’s third RBI of the game.

Pat Dobson was brought in to relieve Wilson and struck out the first two batters he faced – the Red Sox battery, catcher Elston Howard and pitcher Ellsworth – but then walked Andrews, which forced in Scott. Dalton Jones grounded out, 4-3.

Ellsworth walked Al Kaline, then hit Willie Horton, but he induced Freehan to hit into a force play at third base and center fielder Jim Northrup to hit one right back to him, for a 1-6-3 double play.

It was a 5-1 game heading to the seventh. Yastrzemski, 0-for-3 to this point, homered into the upper deck in straightaway right-center to lead off the inning.

Yastrzemski had hit 44 homers in 1967, but not even one in 1968 spring training. He was asked why not. “I wasn’t really trying. … Primarily I was just trying to hit the ball.”9

Reggie Smith then reached safely when Stanley misplayed a ball at first base. He stole second, and then tried to steal third, too, but was thrown out by Freehan. George Scott struck out. Lahoud walked, but then he, too, attempted a steal and was thrown out. Thanks to the Yaz home run, though, the Red Sox had a 6-1 lead.

Three infield groundouts helped Ellsworth close out the seventh.

Daryl Patterson was Detroit’s new pitcher, in his big-league debut. Petrocelli flied out to right. Howard grounded out to Patterson, 1-3, and Ellsworth, batting for himself, grounded out third to first.

The Tigers got back a couple of runs from Ellsworth in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Tigers second baseman Dick McAuliffe doubled to left-center. Kaline singled, McAuliffe moved up to third base.

Willie Horton then doubled to left, driving in McAuliffe as Kaline took third base, but Horton was thrown out on the basepaths, Yastrzemski to Scott, in what the UPI correspondent termed a “great throw.” Horton “overrun second base slightly and Scott was right behind him to make the tag.”10 First baseman Scott chased Horton from second base toward third base and applied the tag.

Freehan drew a base on balls. Northrup hit one to second base, which Andrews misplayed, allowing Kaline to score. Third baseman Don Wert grounded out, 6-4. The inning was over. Boston 6, Detroit 3.

The first two Red Sox batters made outs in the top of the ninth. Yastrzemski, though, hit Patterson’s pitch deep to center, over Northrup’s head. The ball glanced off the base of the fence, then shot toward left field.11

Yastrzemski circled the bases. He crossed the plate standing up for an inside-the-park home run, his second homer of the game, giving the Red Sox a 7-3 lead.

“I made up my mind to go all the way just before I reached second base,” Yastrzemski said afterward.

“I wasn’t going to stop no matter what kind of throws were made to the plate. I never had one inside the park before and I’d have preferred that this one went all the way out because I’m getting too old to leg those things out.”12

Contrary to Yastrzemski’s recollection, it was his third career inside-the-park homer – and second at Tiger Stadium, after hitting one against Phil Regan in 1962.

Ellsworth closed out his complete game. He faced back-to-back pinch-hitters in the bottom of the ninth. Jim Price flied out to center. Eddie Mathews – who had made his major-league debut with the then-Boston Braves 16 years earlier, on Opening Day 1952 – struck out. Stanley doubled to left-center, but McAuliffe hit a game-ending fly ball to right field. It was Ellsworth’s first of 16 victories in 1968, tying Ray Culp for the team lead.

Yastrzemski hit 23 home runs in 1968, while capturing his third AL batting title and fourth on-base-percentage crown. He was the third Red Sox batter to homer twice on Opening Day. The first was Ted Lepcio (April 12, 1955), followed by Lenny Green (April 12, 1965). Later ones were Carlton Fisk (April 6, 1973), Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramírez (both in the same Opening Day game on April 6, 2015), and Wilyer Abreu on March 27, 2025.  

After the Opening Day loss, Mayo Smith was predictably sanguine. “That was only one game. There are 161 left.”13 As it transpired, Smith saw the Tigers through to a 103-win season, and the 1968 World Series championship in seven games over the reigning champion Cardinals.14

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Carl Yastrzemski, Trading Card Database.

Sources  

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, a brief video highlight of the home runs at YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET196804100.shtml 

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B04100DET1968.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvWia0BtDE4

Thanks to Chad Moody for supplying Michigan newspaper coverage of the game.

Notes

1 Bill Francis, “National Tragedy Brought Baseball to a Halt for Two Days in 1968,” baseballhall.org, accessed January 25, 2026, https://baseballhall.org/discover/martin-luther-king-jrs-assassination-brought-baseball-to-a-halt-in-1968.

2 It is noteworthy that Carl Yastrzemski hit .400 in the 1967 World Series, with three home runs and five runs batted in.

3 It had been a three-way battle for the pennant with the 92-70 Red Sox edging out both the Tigers and Minnesota Twins, who had identical 91-71 records. The Chicago White Sox had finished only two games behind the Tigers and Twins. The Tigers had split a doubleheader against the Angels on the last day of the season, while the Red Sox beat the Twins. Since the 1966 Red Sox had finished 26 games out of first place, to then win the pennant the very next year was why the ’67 team became known as “The Impossible Dream” Red Sox. See the SABR book The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: Pandemonium on the Field, ed. Bill Nowlin and Dan Desrochers (Phoenix: SABR, 2017).

4 Wilson made his first appearance for the Red Sox on July 28, 1959, seven days after Pumpsie Green’s debut broke the club’s color barrier.

5 Wilson had been 56-58 with the Red Sox in seven seasons, with a 4.10 ERA.

6 Jim Hough, “‘That Was Only One,’ Mayo Philosophizes,” Lansing (Michigan) State Journal, April 11,1968: 55. See also Will McDonough, “Sox Romp,7-3; Yaz Belts 2,” Boston Globe, April 11, 1968: 50.

7 As of 2026, Wilson’s 33 lifetime home runs as a pitcher – he also hit two as a pinch-hitter – ranked fifth in major-league history behind Wes Ferrell (37), Bob Lemon (35), Warren Spahn (35), and Red Ruffing (34).

8 Lahoud reached base all four times at bat, with three walks and a single. Ken Harrelson, though, became the team’s regular right fielder, and led both leagues with 109 RBIs.

9 McDonough, “‘Yaz, Baby, You Can Do It All.’”

10 Richard L. Shook (United Press International), “Tigers’ 1968 Start Matches ’67 Finish; They’re Game Behind after 7-3 Loss,” Flint (Michigan) Journal, April 11, 1968: 61. Yastrzemski credited first baseman Scott with being at the second-base bag: “You can do anything with Scott. He’s always there. You could just about throw blind and he’d be there.”

11 “Maybe it didn’t look it,” he said after the game, “but that … was one of the hardest hit balls I ever hit in my life.” Will McDonough, “‘Yaz, Baby, You Can Do It All’,” Boston Globe, April 11, 1968: 49.

12 Bill Liston, “AWAY WE GO! Red Sox Win and Yaz Hits 2,” Boston Herald, April 11, 1968: 1, 29.

13 Hough.

14 The Red Sox came in fourth in the AL, 17 games behind the Tigers.