April 12, 1965: Red Sox center fielder Lenny Green homers twice on Opening Day

One way to make a good impression with a new team is to homer in your first game.

In 1965 outfielder Lenny Green, a nine-year veteran, joined the Boston Red Sox, his fourth American League club. Green had reached the big leagues in 1957 with the Baltimore Orioles, who traded him to the Washington Senators in 1959. Green relocated to Minnesota with the Senators after the 1960 season. He remained a Minnesota Twin until 1964, when a three-team, five-player trade sent him to the Los Angeles Angels, and a cash sale delivered him back to the Orioles. 

Still the property of Baltimore, the 32-year-old Green was a nonroster invitee with the Red Sox in 1965 but made the team after leading Boston in spring training with a .385 batting average. His purchase from the Orioles was effected on March 30.

Carl Yastrzemski was back in left field for Boston after struggling defensively in center in 1964, and Green had the first shot at the Red Sox center-field job.1 “I had no intention of starting the season with Green in center field,” acknowledged new Red Sox manager Billy Herman. “[Gary] Geiger was to be my center fielder. But Lenny hit so well he forced his way in there. He’s a real hustler.”2

The Red Sox commenced their 1965 schedule on April 12 at Washington’s DC Stadium – facing the fifth-year expansion Senators franchise, awarded when the original Senators moved away – and Green was batting second in Herman’s lineup. As a Twin, Green had homered three straight years in Minnesota’s home or season opener. On April 25, 1961, in the Twins’ first game at Metropolitan Stadium, he hit a game-tying solo homer to right field in the bottom of the eighth against the expansion Senators. The Twins lost in the ninth, 5-3.  

On April 14, 1962, in Minnesota’s home opener against the Angels, he led off the third inning with a solo home run. They lost the game, 12-5.

On April 9, 1963, the Twins opened the season at home. In the bottom of the third, with the Twins down 1-0, Green hit a one-out solo home run to right. The Twins lost this one, too, to the Cleveland Indians, 5-4.3

Opening the ’65 season in Washington meant a ceremonial first pitch from President Lyndon Johnson, with a crowd of 43,554, a reported record for Opening Day in Washington, looking on.4 Gil Hodges was manager for the Senators. His starting pitcher was right-hander Phil Ortega, a veteran of five seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 1964 Ortega was 7-9 with a 4.00 earned-run average. He had come to the Senators in a six-player December 1964 deal that had netted three members of Washington’s Opening Day lineup – third baseman Ken McMullen and left fielder Frank Howard were the others – while sending lefty Claude Osteen to Los Angeles.

Herman’s Red Sox had selected Bill Monbouquette. “Monbo” had broken in with his hometown Red Sox back in 1958 and had been a 20-game winner in 1963 (20-10, 3.81). He’d been 13-14 (4.04) in 1964.

After Ortega struck out rookie shortstop Rico Petrocelli to begin the game, Green was up next. He popped up to the shortstop. Neither team scored in the first inning. Though the Red Sox loaded the bases in the second on a single, walk, and error, they did not score. In the bottom of the inning, Senators center fielder Don Lock hit a leadoff homer to left field, for a 1-0 lead. It was the first run Washington had scored off Monbouquette after 37 consecutive scoreless innings.5

The Red Sox solved Ortega with a two-out, four-run rally in the third. After Petrocelli and Green had made outs, Yastrzemski walked and right fielder Tony Conigliaro singled, Yaz taking third. First baseman Lee Thomas homered off the scoreboard in right-center – over the 18-foot-high fence some 375 feet from the plate – for three runs. Second baseman Felix Mantilla – whose 30 home runs were second on the 1964 Red Sox only to the traded-away Dick Stuart’s 33 – made it back-to-back homers with a shot into the left-field bullpen.6

After four full innings, it remained 4-1, Boston. The Senators had blown a fourth-inning opportunity after Bob Chance doubled and Howard walked to open the inning. One out later, Willie Kirkland’s fly ball lifted high between home and third base. It was called an automatic out under the infield fly rule – but then dropped by Boston third baseman Frank Malzone, leaving the runners free to advance at their own risk. Howard bolted from first toward second, not noticing that Chance stayed close to the base. Catcher Bob Tillman snatched up the ball and fired to Petrocelli near second base, who tagged Chance for the third out.7  

Lenny Green led off the top of the fifth. On a count of 0-and-2, he homered off Ortega down the right-field line and into the corner. Characterizing Green as “a Baltimore reject playing center field for the Red Sox,” the Washington Post’s Shirley Povich wrote that Green had “squeezed a home run into the shortest point in right field.”8

“When I get good wood on the ball, that’s where it goes,” Green said afterward. “I didn’t think the first one was over [the fence], to tell the truth. … I never got around the bases faster on a ball that went out of the park.”9

Yastrzemski walked on four pitches, then stole second. Conigliaro grounded back to the pitcher, Yaz taking third. Two more groundouts followed, but it was 5-1, Red Sox.

And so it remained through six innings. Steve Ridzik had relieved Ortega to work the sixth.

In the top of the seventh, Petrocelli flied out to deep center field. On a 1-and-1 count, Green hit another home run, also deep down the right-field line. Both of them, observed the Boston Globe, were “over the six-foot fence near the 335-foul [sic] pole in right.”10

After Yastrzemski struck out, Conigliaro – who had clubbed 24 home runs as a 19-year-old rookie in 1964 – hit a solo homer of his own, into the upper deck in left field. The fifth Red Sox home run of the game made it 7-1.

Four the next four half-innings, not a batter for either team reached base. That included Green, who made the third out in the top of the ninth, striking out swinging.

Monbouquette pitched a complete game, marred only by McMullen’s leadoff home run in the bottom of the ninth, hit into the Red Sox bullpen. A couple of infield popups followed, and then a groundball back to the mound by Lock. Monbouquette threw to first base and the game was over.  Boston 7, Washington 2. All nine runs were produced by home runs.

Catcher Tillman said that after Lock’s second-inning homer he’d never seen his pitcher have better stuff: “Monbo was just great. He threw hard all day. But then he began to break off some great curves and sliders. He had excellent control and knew where every pitch was going.”11 Monbouquette went on to a 10-18 record for the 62-100, ninth-place Red Sox in 1965, but his 3.70 ERA was good enough for a 101 ERA+.12

Green became only the second player in Red Sox history to hit two homers on Opening Day. Ten years to the day earlier, on April 12, 1955, Ted Lepcio had hit two home runs in a 7-1 Red Sox win at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

Later Red Sox with two-homer openers included Yastrzemski (April 10, 1968, at Tiger Stadium); Carlton Fisk (April 6, 1973 against the visiting New York Yankees); and Wilyer Abreu (March 27, 2025, against the Rangers in Texas).

On April 6, 2015, both Dustin Pedroia and Hanley Ramírez homered twice in Boston’s season-opening win against the Phillies in Philadelphia. As in 1965, the Red Sox hit a total of five home runs in that game. Through the 2025 season, Boston’s five-homer openers in 1965 and 2015 were the franchise’s Opening Day record.

Green went on to play in 119 games in 1965, usually between Yastrzemski in left field and Conigliaro in right. He hit .276 with a .361 on-base percentage. Batting leadoff in 80 of his 84 starts, he hit a total of 7 home runs and drove in only 24 runs but scored 69 times, good for fourth on the team.

After 1965, Green appeared in 85 games for the 1966 Red Sox, hitting .241 with only one home run. He signed with the Detroit Tigers for 1967, again homering just once in 58 games, batting .278. A six-game stint with the World Series champion Tigers in 1968 ended his career.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Lenny Green, Trading Card Database.

Sources 

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WS2/WS2196504120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B04120WS21965.htm

Notes

1 Hy Hurwitz, “Herman Feels Smith May Win CF Job,” Boston Globe, February 25, 1965: 41.

2 Larry Claflin, “Ryan Draws Hub Hurrahs for Mittwork,” The Sporting News, April 24, 1965: 27.

3 In 1964, however, Green only pinch-hit, once in the Twins’ season opener and again in the home opener.

4 Bob Addie, “Boston’s Five Homers Rip Nats, 7 to 2,” Washington Post, April 13, 1965: D1.

5 Roger Birtwell, “5 Homers Help Sox Win Opener, 7-2,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1965: 21.

6 Addie. Also see Birtwell.

7 Addie described the play in detail.

8 Shirley Povich, “This Morning,” Washington Post, April 13, 1965: D1.

9 Ray Fitzgerald, “Lenny Has Mates Green with Envy,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, April 13,1965: 26.

10 Harold Kaese, “So Who Needs Stuart?” Boston Globe, April 13, 1965: 1, 21.

11 Hy Hurwitz, “‘Fast Starters’ Give Herman Sendoff,” Boston Globe, April 13, 1965: 46.

12 The Senators came in eighth in the AL with a 70-92 record, 32 games behind the pennant-winning Twins. Ortega had a 12-15 record and a 5.11 ERA.