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Yaz hits one of the longest homers
ever hit at Fenway Park
May 16, 1970 ...
The Red Sox were floundering and needed something big. Carl
Yastrzemski answered the call with perhaps one of the longest home
runs ever hit out of Fenway Park. His three run homer in the
eighth-inning, snapped a five-game losing streak and carried the Sox to a 6 to 2
victory over the Cleveland Indians. With the score tied at 2 to 2, Yaz hit a
rising line drive through a crosswind, over the back wall of the centerfield
bleachers, with two men on base. Only four other players had cleared the wall to
the right of the flagpole in center. The others were Jimmie Foxx, Hank
Greenberg, Mickey Mantle, and Bill Skowron.
Yastrzemski was not the only hero in the Red Sox win. Ray Culp went the route
and could have easily had a shutout. All of the Red Sox runs came from the long
ball, as Tony Conigliaro and Rico Petrocelli also slammed home runs.
Conigliaro, is on a torrid home run streak with six in his last seven games.
He tied the game with a two run blast off Indians starter, Dean Chance, in the
sixth inning. Petrocelli hit a bases empty shot that capped the four run eighth
inning.
Chance held the Sox scoreless for the first five innings while the Indians
slipped into a 2 to 0 lead. The runs came off Culp, as Vada Pinson led off with
a single and took second after one out, when Graig Nettles singled to right.
Culp tried to pick Pinson off at second and the ball ended up in right field,
with Pinson racing home with the first run of the game. Nettles moved over to
third, where he scored on a squeeze bunt from Ray Fosse.
Chance made the 2 to 0 margin hold up until the sixth inning, when Yaz
doubled and then strolled home in front of Tony C's eighth homer of the year, a
towering drive high into the left-field screen.
With the score tied, the Sox put the game away in the eighth inning against
reliever Dennis Higgins. Higgins walked Dick Schofield and Reggie Smith to start
the inning. He got behind Yaz, two balls and one strike, before Yastrzemski
launched the tape measure drive, which made the score 5 to 2.
Petrocelli joined the homer parade against Higgins soon afterward, with
another line drive into the left-field screen.
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