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It was meant to happen. At least, it seemed that way. Triggering a standing ovation from a Fenway Park crowd slightly exceeding 10,000, Theodore Samuel Williams, as he had done 519 times before, smacked a ball into the outfield seats (he also hit an inside-the-park home run in 1946.) It was the Red Sox slugger’s […]

The Boston Red Sox had just come off the road after losing two games in Washington and splitting a pair against the Yankees in New York. Their record was 60-50 and they were in second place, 13½ games behind the Yankees. The Washington Senators came to visit Fenway Park for a Saturday afternoon doubleheader, the […]

Over the course of his career, Ted Williams homered six times off Dizzy Trout. The last one of them won a ballgame.1 It was his first – and last – home run of 1952. It came on “Ted Williams Day.” Williams was given a “day” where fans in Boston could say goodbye as he left […]

As the Cleveland Indians shortstop, Lou Boudreau had seen firsthand the damage Ted Williams could do at the plate. And as the team’s manager, he was determined to do something about it. Williams had hit three home runs and a single, driving in eight runs, in the first game of the Sunday doubleheader against the […]

It was looking like a sad Monday for Red Sox fans at Fenway Park. The 1946 pennant winners played a daytime doubleheader, making up a game postponed by rain the previous day. They were hosting the 1945 world champion Detroit Tigers, who had finished second in 1946. The first game was a heartbreaker of a […]

Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams had promised in late May of 1946 to “really start hitting when the weather warms up,”1 He delivered in a June 9 doubleheader, blasting a home run in each game, including the longest one he ever hit at Fenway Park. The Red Sox swept the Detroit Tigers 7-1 and […]

The Chicago White Sox hosted a Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Comiskey Park. The Boston Red Sox were the visitors. On Friday night, Boston had beaten Chicago, 5-1, and on Saturday afternoon the Red Sox had won, 5-2. Sunday represented an opportunity for the White Sox to salvage a split, should they sweep the doubleheader. Future […]

The Boston Red Sox won both halves of the Memorial Day doubleheader against the visiting Philadelphia Athletics, 10-2 and 4-3, but Ted Williams hadn’t helped much until the eighth inning of the second game. In the first game, he had gone 0-for-3, hitting into two double plays, grounding out 3-1, and walking a couple of […]

This was the next-to-last home run Ted Williams ever hit. It was also the fourth game-winner in a row he had hit off Washington Senators right-hander Pedro Ramos, who was only 25 years old but had given up six home runs to Williams, with the four game-winners tying him (with Virgil Trucks) for first place […]

Willie Tasby hit a grand slam. Vic Wertz hit a three-run homer. But it was the two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth inning that gave the Boston Red Sox their second and third runs – the third run being the one that won them the 13-2 game over the visiting Kansas City Athletics. […]

Jack Kramer – who started 1947 with wins in his first three decisions, even though his St. Louis Browns were well under .500 already – was pounded for eight runs in four innings by the Indians on May 11, dealing him his first loss of the season. But the Browns followed that loss by splitting […]

Shooting for .400, Ted Williams didn’t manage a single in the Boston Red Sox’ September 1 doubleheader with the Washington Senators, nor a two-base hit. He didn’t hit a triple, either, but he improved his batting average by three points, from .407 to .410. He did hit three home runs — two in the first […]

The Boston Red Sox won the game in the top of the first inning. They just couldn’t know it yet. They were emerging from a streaky stretch. They lost eight games in a row, then won eight games in a row. They had lost 8-7 on July 15 when the Tigers rallied for four runs […]

Of the nine game-winning homers Ted Williams hit in his rookie year, three were hit in Cleveland, all in a 45-day span. The Cleveland Indians had two home fields in the late 1930s — the smaller League Park and (for larger games, such as weekend affairs) the larger-capacity Cleveland Stadium. Williams had homered at Cleveland […]

In the course of his career, Ted Williams hit 521 major-league home runs. More than 20 percent of them were game-winners.1 His first homer to win a game was in the ninth game of his rookie season of 1939, on May 4 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. His three-run homer in the top of the […]

Future Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams both homered in the Boston Red Sox’ 18-7 win over the St. Louis Browns in the second game of a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park on June 9, 1939. It was one of 111 losses that year for the inept Browns, who finished an American League-record 64½ […]

It was a Saturday afternoon game at Cleveland Stadium. The Cleveland Indians (37-29) were in first place in the American League, one game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles and two games ahead of both the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees. The 30-37 Boston Red Sox were just a half-game above the last-place Kansas […]

It took two Ted Williams home runs for The Kid to win this game. They were widely separated, the first one coming in the top of the third inning and the second one not until the 11th. Williams had started the season pinch-hitting in six of his first seven games. In spring training, on March […]

A game-winning home run can come in the first inning, as when Ted Williams hit a two-run homer a little over a year before this one – on August 2, 1947, beating the Detroit Tigers, 2-1. In this day’s game against the visiting St. Louis Browns, Williams also hit a game-winning homer in the first […]

Before the May 6, 1947, game at Sportsman’s Park began, St. Louis Browns starting pitcher Jack Kramer talked about Red Sox left fielder (and reigning American League MVP) Ted Williams. He “casually remarked that the only way to pitch to Ted if a run meant the ball game is to walk him.”1 He might have […]

The 1939 Boston Red Sox fell from first place to second on their May 10 offday, when the New York Yankees won in St. Louis and advanced from second place to first, overturning a half-game deficit in the American League standings. Four months later, on September 10, the Red Sox’ demotion in the standings had […]

It was the final All-Star Game of the twentieth century. On a mid-July night at Fenway Park, the greatest living players in baseball history were in the ballpark for the game between the best of the National League and the best of the American League. And, appropriately, two Red Sox legends stole the show. The […]

The 1949 season was nearing the end of August. The Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox both had 122 games in the books, entering play on August 27. The American League standings showed Chicago in sixth place (51-71), 15 games behind the fourth-place Philadelphia Athletics and nearly 10 ahead of the seventh-place St. Louis […]

The first game of the Sunday doubleheader at Comiskey Park was a close, well-played, low-scoring affair until everything suddenly fell apart for the hosting Chicago White Sox. Starting for the White Sox was Buck Ross, a 27-year-old veteran wrapping up his seventh year in the big leagues. The North Carolina native was 5-5 coming in […]