Nobody did better with what they had...not real tall, not real muscular, not the fastest; his intensity & passion for the Game, while he was playing, 2nd to none. 2 of my prize possessions are Yaz baseballs: 1st one, he fouled off in a game at Fenway against the Yankees in early '68; my dad caught it for me...2nd one, he autographed for my wife at a Jimmy Fund event just after he'd been inducted into the Hall of Fame. He gave us so much, I'm glad he has his privacy now. Gods Bless and thanks.
I was 15 in 1967 and a rabid Red Sox fan. I think I listened to most of the games on the radio as not many were televised then. In my opinion, Yaz played the best clutch baseball of any player ever in 1967. He always seemed to get the clutch hit, made that incredible catch in the Rohr game, and who can forget the throw to home? I wish I could find the recording of the game with Ken Coleman yelling "DEEP TO RIGHT..........FORGET IT!" in a clutch win down the stretch. I get chills thinking about that game.
As a child I was lucky enought to have met Carl Yaztrzemski, We lived in Swampscott , Ma and our house was up for sale. he was one of the possible buyers that came to see it . I was lucky enough to get a baseball and jersey from him. He was from what I remembered a great guy !
My first Red Sox game was the one where Yaz covered up the plate--May of 1975. I was in the bleachers. My friend told me to watch two rookies who at the time were unheard of: Rice and Lynn. What a game. Yaz was/is my all time favorite.
The plate burial is classic. My best Yaz moment came when a pitcher threw a brushback pitch at his head. Yaz hit the dirt, barely avoiding the ball. He got up, and a pitch or two later hit a line drive that by that point in his career should have been a double, but he rounded second like a psychopath, willing it into a sliding triple. He got up, called time out, and when he was sure the pitcher was looking, spit towards him in contempt. That was Yaz. (Little help on the pitcher, anyone?)
I remember that. The pitcher was Baylor Moore of the Toronto Blue Jays, and the game was played in Toronto. What you might not remember is that Moore actually threw *two* pitches at his head in the same at bat. Yaz hit the deck twice to avoid them. Nowadays a batter in that situation would have charged the mound. Not Yaz. He got the best revenge ... he used his hitting as the weapon!
Yaz was actually under 5'11" and less than 180lbs. No juice and over 450 HR's. Arod 6'4', 225lbs. Ted Williams 6'3", 205. Barry Bonds 6'2", 240lbs. Ruth 6'2" 215lbs. Sammy Sosa 6', 225lbs. Cal Ripken 6'4", 220lbs. This really puts his greatness in perspective. And oh, by the way... he could field a little bit too.
Being 5’11 was an advantageous because like Pete Rose, they fell on their shoulders a lot diving, chasing and crashing fences for balls on defense. Taller guys tend to have shorter careers playing this way.
What a beautiful classic swing he had, the bat practically wraps around his neck, a complete follow through. Today's players seem to let go with one hand and don't follow through all the way.
1967 last two games vS the Twins. If they win both they win the pennant. Yastrzemski goes 7 for 8. Has a .369 lifetime avg in the post season. Legend and a true hall of famer.
999York.....I followed Yaz from 1967 until his retirement. If he had played in the Bronx, he would have hit 600+ homers. Yaz hit the ball on the button. I can't tell you how many doubles he hit to deep center field at Fenway!
pncombies No question about it. Had Yaz played for the Yankees, or the Tigers, he would have added at least 100 home runs to his total. He also lost a great many to that huge 380 right field expanse that covers almost the entire span after small area around the 'Pesky Pole'. As a Red Sox fan, though, I sure am glad that he didn't!
pncombies The difference-maker was his father, Mike Yastrzemski, who negotiated his first contract. Carl was a top-rated prospect (as a shortstop, no less), and was sought by the Yankees and the Reds as well as the Red Sox. All of them offered more or less the same money. But his dad wanted one thing more: Pay for Carl's college education. (He wanted Carl to learn a trade, in case baseball didn't work out.) The Reds and the Yankees said, "No way!" Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, the richest and most generous man in baseball, said, "You got it!" The rest is history.
NY wanting to sign a young Carl .. The Yankee rep threw a pencil in the Yastrzemski's kitchen out of frustration and Dad Yaz threw him out . "No one throws a pencil in my home" , Dad Yaz yelled. It was something like that lol
@doltoy Yaz was my boyhood hero. In '67, he got me not only interested in playing Little League but in math so I could figure out the stats I read in the Boston Globe. I also loved the covering up of the plate. But, man: That did look like a strike.
steve benton Yeah! When Yaz was in his prime, he held the bat so high, I thought he would be struck by lightning. And he had that nasty, ferocious, uppercut swing, like he wanted to MASSACRE the ball every time he touched it! Now THERE'S an example for those steroid-users!
Yaz took leftfield 1 month before l was born and retired 7 weeks after l was discharged from the Marines. What a career! He will always be Red Sox baseball to me.
The younger generation that has seen the Red Sox win 3 championships in this century should feel fortunate.Although Yaz,Dewey,Pudge and El Tiante never won a championship,they played the game from their heart and with their brains with true dignity.Ortiz,Manny,Dustin and Pedro; great players but no match for the Sox of the '70's.
On this day in 1979 {September 12th} Carl Yastrzemski got his 3,000th career base hit, thus becoming the first player in the American League to have 3,000 career hits and 400 career home runs... In 1967 he won the Triple Crown {B.A. of .326, 44 homers, & 121 RBIs} and won the M.V.P. Award... {He was the Major Leagues last Triple Crown winner until last year when Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers accomplished it}... YAZ celebrated his 74th birthday one month ago on August 22nd...
One of Yaz's classic's was when he smoked Seaver in the 1975 All-star game . Prime Seaver with a 100 mph fastball, grunting: YAZ blasted that ball out of the park first pitch . Smokin'
The man they call Yaz. That catch when he went diving overhead is forever burned into my brain as I saw it on tv when it happened. We went crazy. My family was all screaming and yelling and running and everyone in our neighborhood was doing the same cuz we all ran outside and screamed and yelled there too. My uncle is this bear of a guy and I was this little kid in the sixties, I think it was around '68 so I was around 9 or so and my Uncle went up to this station wagon that was driving up to where we were standing right next to the red sox parking lot right next to fenway park and he just went right up to the car and handed my hat to the guy driving and said, hey Yaz, please sign this for the kid, my nephew. And that great man actually signed the hat and I got his autograph. My Uncle also went up to the bus of the visiting team (we went to so many games I can't remember too well all the times we did stuff...this might have been another game) I think it was the Washington Senators back then, and he did the same thing, he said into an open window please pass this to Frank and have him sign these. And he knew just what to say because the Senators had just lost and were in a foul mood I'm sure but my Uncle knew what psychological ploy to use as he repeatedly said, sign it for the kid, sign it for the kid. And he passed my hat into the window and my older brother's catcher's mitt. And 6' 8" Frank Howard signed Both of them! What great men! A guy that hammered 10 home runs in 20 at bats, and 13 HR in 16 games!! My dad and the rest of the guys were just slack jawed and then roaring with laughter at how my huge Uncle would just do stuff.
I didn't go to many games at Fenway. But, I was there to see Frank Howard murder a ball that was still rising when it hit 2 feet from the top of the green monster.
Yaz's sensational catch in the 9th inning at 3:26 against the Yankees would have gone down in history as the greatest catch ever to save a no-hitter ... if Billy Rohr could have just gotten 2 more outs! He managed to get one, but then Elston Howard hit a single. What a shame.
No athlete before or since, has carried a team the way Carl did in the stretch run in 1967. No athlete before or since, has maximized his athletic talent with intelligence, hard work, and unwavering determination the way Carl did throughout his career. When Carl succeeded, as he so often did, it was well-deserved, and for all the right reasons.
My first And favorite Baseball Hero! When my little league team couldn't give me #8 because it was too small and gave it to the bat boy, I cried like a baby. lol. I wore 11. my dad was like.... what? 11 is good! Dave Stapleton! I wasn't having any of it! lol (even tho If stapleton was in the game vs the mets in 86 I think that play would have been made and the sox would have won that series! )
I saw him hit a home run in Yankee stadium that's still going - it was a laser beam that bounced off the upper deck which got there in about 3 seconds. Sometime in 1969 or 1970 on a little black and white TV. He just stood and watched it go (as did everyone else). When he got it he got all of it.
3:28 Yaz saves a Billy Rohr no-hitter with no outs bottom of the 9th vs Yanks. But the Yanks got a hit with two outs, two strikes in Rohr's major league debut.
BEST LEFTFIELDER TO PLAY THE GAME!!! YAZ WAS A HARD-NOSED PLAYER!!! You see the shit guys like Greenwell and Manny Rameriz did in leftfield and you'll see what heart is!!!!
A better piece of music to this would be Frank Sinatra, My Way, which is what TV38 did for #8, that was more appropriate, because that is how #8 did it......his way!
Al Hrabosky (with KC) knocked him down one night at Fenway in 1978. It was a rainy night, Yaz hit the next pitch over the bullpen, never taking his eye off Hrobosky all the way around the bases.
The only other player besides Yaz to have nerves of steel when hitting in a clutch situation is Ortiz. Yaz was monster in '67 and he played like an above average player all through his 30's. in '78 he hit 28 homers when he was 37! My first red Sox favorite...then Fisk...then Evans..then Boggs...Then Clemens to Pedro but it started with YAZ!
Love the Yaz & you have some awesome clips but "save me from the nothing I've become" ???? How does this song have anything to do with one of the greatest left fielders in baseball history?
great video..what's with the music you couldn't come up with a better song just saying not a great way to represent Carl yastrzemski an icon of baseball...i remember when he retired i remember sitting around the TV watching it it was a big deal but such a sad day i was 10 years old a memory that will be with me forever
at his peak yaz is the equal of or a shade below stan musial as greatest left-fielder ever (all-around skills&leadership). but the point was on neutral fields yaz hit .264. yes that's right - .264. teddycakes as an all-around left-fielder is maybe 5th. fenway helped ted, rice & yaz a ton. just do some research.
But doesn't practically every player have a better average at home? And how many fewer home runs would the left-batting Yankee sluggers have if their ball park wasn't designed with such a short right-field fence? And on these "neutral fields", Carl made his most spectacular fielding plays. I'll easily take that as "compensation" for the lower batting average.
Well, even the Yankee fans gave him a standing ovation when he came up to bat in his final game at Yankee Stadium. So at least some of them appreciate greatness from someone other than on their team.
Nice job. Focus on the video content if you don't like the music. Most people that have negative comments have never created anything positive in their lives. Black holes of energy, if that's your goal.....well done!!
Had never seen Yaz harp like that. Man, what a bitch! Lost a lot of respect for him there. Don't feel so bad for him anymore, for making the last out in the `78 playoff.
It was great entertainment watching Yaz go off on an ump lol. Bah , even Jesus got upset when he whipped and tossed the hustlers out of the temple. It's understandable.
