Yastrzemski Reaches Hall by Being Himself

When he stepped into the batter’s box, he had a ritual. It never varied. First, he would reach across the plate and tap the end of the bat on the outside corner. Then he would reach up one massive hand and carefully position the batting helmet just where he wanted it. He would crouch slightly like an animal about to spring. Then, he would hold the bat over his head like a Roman candle and cock an eye at the pitcher. If there were runners on base, the pitcher would curse silently.

It isn’t easy succeeding a legend. Just ask Gene Tunney. Just ask George Selkirk, who only had to be the next Babe Ruth. Ask any of the guys who had to replace John Wooden. Ask Hunk Anderson, who only had to replace Knute Rockne. Ask Larry Holmes. How many “new Bing Crosbys” do you think came and went? How would you like to do a part made famous by Clark Gable?

It’s why I always had an especial admiration for Carl Michael Yastrzemski. First of all, there was that name to get by. Linotypers the country over hoped he’d fail before they ran out of consonants. It was said that no one could ever spell his name right or get a fastball by him, no matter how long he played.

And then, there was the fact he could never be himself.

Carl Yastrzemski came up to the big leagues in baseball with the biggest monkey on his back of anyone since George Selkirk or whoever took over for Ty Cobb.

Yastrzemski, you see, was the man who was going to be the next Ted Williams. Try that for a load around your neck starting a career.

The mystery is that Carl Yastrzemski wasn’t out of baseball and back sacking potatoes in Southampton by his third summer in the grand old game.

No one is the next Ted Williams. No one can live up to those unreasonable expectations.

The astonishing thing is, Carl Yastrzemski darn near did. He ended up doing most of the things the real Ted Williams did. He did some things Williams didn’t do--get 3,000 hits, for example. He got almost as many home runs as Williams--452 to 521. He got more runs batted in--1,844 to 1,839. He scored more runs--1,816 to 1,798.

He walked less and he didn’t have as high an average. But in Ted Williams, we may be talking of the purest striker of the baseball in history.

Also, Ted Williams never had to be anything but Ted Williams.

It isn’t easy being someone else. Carl Yastrzemski never became “the Splendid Splinter,” “the Thumper,” or “Teddy Ballgame.” But he was a born striker of the baseball himself.

Still, no matter what he did when he came up after Williams retired, it wasn’t enough.

If he got a single with the bases loaded, the crowd would sneer, “Ted would have hit a home run.”

When he won his first batting title with .321 in only his third year, fans sniffed, “Ted hit .406 when he won.”

If he led the league in average, the fans growled that he hit only 14 home runs. “Ted used to hit 30 or 40,” they groused.

If he struck out, the fans hissed, “Ted never struck out.”

Even the rest of the league got into the act.

“He’s an all-star from the neck down,” growled the White Sox manager, Eddie Stanky, once.

The next day, the all-star from the neck down went 6 for 9 against Stanky’s thinking-man’s hitters.

Then, in 1967, the man who wasn’t Ted Williams became the man who was Carl Yastrzemski. He had one of those incandescent years only the great ones have. He became only the ninth man in modern baseball history to win the triple crown--batting average, home runs, runs batted in. No one has won it since.

He hit 44 home runs, 1 more than the real Ted Williams ever hit in a season. He led his team to the pennant. He probably had two of the greatest clutch games ever put together by a superstar.

When the Minnesota Twins came into Boston needing only 1 win to clinch the ’67 pennant, Yastrzemski took over. He went 3 for 4 with a home run and 4 RBIs in the first game, then went 4 for 4 with a double, a run scored and 2 RBIs in the second.

In those two games, he went 7 for 8 with 6 RBIs and 2 runs scored and played the outfield caroms like Willie Hoppe.

And all Boston went around wearing a lapel button reading, “Yaz, Sir, That’s My Baby!” Without blushing.

In the World Series that followed, Carl Yastrzemski hit 3 home runs, batted .400, made 16 putouts, some with leaping catches, and threw out 2 baserunners on the speediest team in the game, the St. Louis Cardinals.

But the event most of us will long remember in that Series is the sight of the great Yastrzemski, after an opening game that his team lost, 2-1, mostly because Carl went 0 for 4, coming out in the gloaming after the game to take hours of batting practice. It was the single most humbling position I had ever seen a superstar put himself in--and this was from a guy who had been accused for years in Boston of being indifferent to the fate of his team, caring only for his stats.

The next day, Yastrzemski hit 2 home runs, went 3 for 4 and batted in 4 runs as the Cardinals got thumped and the Series got evened.

He was never again compared to Ted Williams. Or anyone else. He went on to hit 40 home runs in a year twice more, he won two more batting championships, he led the Red Sox to one more pennant.

Monday, he did another thing Ted Williams did--he made the Hall of Fame on the first bounce. Only the guys with identity all their own do that.

And, if you chance to go to Fenway Park this season and you see some kid struggling out in left field or at the plate, if you listen carefully, you may hear some fan say disgustedly of a fly that bounces off the infamous left-field wall, “Yaz woulda had it!’

And his seat companion will counter, “Yaz woulda got 2 on it!”

And if the kid pops a single to left with 3 on, the fan will grumble, “Yaz woulda hit it out!”

But the real Yastrzemski will know how to handle it.

“Just be yourself, kid. When you hit 40 home runs, they’ll be all yours!”