by Giles Day

Created on: July 25, 2008

This article is concerning the all time best players on the Boston Red Sox. When discussing the sluggers in the history of any MLB franchise, it is importaqnt that we remember that any of us can be predjudiced by the players active in our era. All die-hard fans of baseball have their favorites, and we can have our thoughts colored by their performances.Sometimes, it is easy to think of poor as fair, fair as good, and good as great. This is not the rule within the history of the Boston Red Sox. There have been relatively few men who have performed at a consistently above level average year after year. Every time period has had hitters who have had one or two great years, but have not been known for their great overall prowess. Five hundred lifetime homeruns stand as a benchmark for great slugging,and only one Red Sox player has ever reached that during his entire career in Boston. That one name is recognized as the all-time great hitter in Boston history: Ted Williams. Williams hit .344, with five hundred twenty one homers as a Boston Red Sox player.He did ths despite missing almost five years during World War II and the Korean conflict. No one in Bosox history has even come close to putting up the numbers he did. Ted Williams was not a "team player", but that is insignifigant at this time. His lifetime average stands out even more when compared to the homerunsa that he hit during his career.

Jim Rice, in my opinion, was the second best all-time player. He hit three hundred eighty two homeruns in just over fifteen years, and had a .298 batting average which shows that he was a good hitter also. The disappointment is that he never made it to the Hall of Fame, while others of far lesser talent have.

Probably the greatest right handed slugger of al times is the one who never really was:Tony Coligniaro. Tony has one hudred four homeruns when he was hit by that Hamilton fast ball in August of 1967. He wasa the youngest man to ever reach one hundred home runs that early in his career. Sadly for Tony, he was very accidentally prone, and his brillant career was cut short by these injuries.

Four hundred fifty two homeruns, and a .285 lifetime bating average is very good, but definitely not in the category of greatness. Carl Yastremski played twenty three years in Boston, which were marked by inconsistency and unrealized potential. When, in 1967, he hit .326, forty four homeruns, and one hundred twenty one R.B.I.s,he did not help the Red Sox win the American League pennant,

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