Boston Red Sox: Ranking the top 10 players from the 1970s

The Red Sox of the 1970s had personalities as colorful as their uniforms. Here’s a list of their ten best players from that era.

After being one of the best teams in the American League during the 1940s, the Boston Red Sox were one of the worst for the 1950s and most of the 1960s. It wasn’t until the Impossible Dream pennant-winning season of 1967 that the team returned to respectability and being competitive on a (mostly) yearly basis.

While the Red Sox came up just short of achieving the ultimate goal of winning the World Series in 1967, that revitalized baseball in New England and gave birth to Red Sox Nation. It also sparked a run of teams that were competitive and resulted in the following decade, the 1970s, being one of the best in Red Sox history.

While the 1970s would only result in one pennant (in 1975), the team had a winning record every season of the decade and several near misses where they were in the race until late in the season (and in a couple of infamous cases, to the very last day of the season). The Red Sox players (and uniforms) of the 1970s also hold a special place in the hearts of fans who came of age in that decade in much the same way as I feel about the 1980s teams.

The following is a list of the best Red Sox players from the intense, freewheeling decade that was the 1970s. In no particular order, let’s begin.

Carl Yastrzemski

To the surprise of no one, Carl Yastrzemski is on this list. His twenty-three year career, all of which was spent with the Red Sox, spanned the entirety of the 1960s and 1970s before it ended in 1983. While Yaz’s best seasons were between 1967 (when he won the American League Triple Crown) and 1970 (with another batting title won in 1968), he was still very, very good in the 1970s.

After hitting forty or more home runs in 1967, 1969, and 1970, Yaz never again even hit over thirty in a season for the rest of his career, but his steady production at the plate and defense in the field (he won Gold Gloves in 1971 and 1977 in addition to the five he won in the 1960s) helped lead the Red Sox to their most successful decade in a long time.

For the 1970s, Yaz hit .282 with 202 home runs, 846 RBI, 1492 hits, 846 runs scored, a .382 OBP, and an OPS of .832 between 1970 and 1979. His production was steady and dependable and he played no fewer than 144 games in any season during the decade. Yaz also started playing a fair amount of first base during the 1970s although he still remained primarily a left fielder.

While Carl Yastrzemski would come up short of making the postseason a few times in the 1970s and narrowly missed out winning a World Series in 1975, he was the undisputed leader of those teams and one of their best and most productive players of the decade.

Jim Rice

Like Yaz on the previous slide, Jim Rice played his entire sixteen year career with the Red Sox. First coming up to the big leagues in the summer of 1974, Rice held down left field from 1975 until his final season in 1989 and carried on the unbroken lineage of Hall of Fame left fielders the Red Sox had that began with Ted Williams (1939-1960) and Carl Yastrzemski (1961-1983).

Rice was having a monster rookie season in 1975 (alongside teammate and fellow rookie “Gold Dust Twin” Fred Lynn) before breaking his wrist when he was hit by a pitch in the final week of the season. To this day, many Red Sox fans are convinced the team would’ve won the World Series that year had Rice been able to play.

By the late 1970s, Rice had become one of the most feared hitters in the league. A look at his numbers tells the story. Between 1974 and 1979, Rice hit .303 with 172 home runs, 583 RBI, 976 hits, 515 runs scored, a .350 OBP, and an OPS of .872. He won the American League MVP in 1978, led the AL in home runs twice (1977, 1978), RBI in 1978, and was an All Star in 1977, 1978, and 1979.

Rice continued to produce into the 1980s before injuries slowed him down and ended his career in 1989, but his peak years in the late 1970s and early 1980s merit his inclusion on both lists.

Dwight Evans

Spending all but the final season of his twenty year career with the Red Sox, Dwight Evans was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to his power numbers but a stellar defensive right fielder his entire career. Even though his career numbers are almost identical to Hall of Fame teammate Jim Rice, Evans didn’t become a consistent power threat until the late 1970s which has probably hurt his candidacy (although in my opinion he belongs in Cooperstown).

Coming up with the Red Sox for the first time in 1972, Evans became a regular in 1973 and proceeded to put up a .261 average with 110 home runs, 383 RBI, a .342 OBP, and a .783 OPS between 1972 and 1979. Those are respectable numbers but it wasn’t until 1978 that Evans became a reliable 20-30 home run per season threat. The bulk of his career numbers were put up in the 1980s.

Still, Evans more than made up for it with his defense in right field and he won three of his eight Gold Glove awards in the 1970s (in 1976, 1978, and 1979). His catch in the top of the eleventh inning in Game Six of the 1975 World Series saved the game for the Red Sox and allowed Carlton Fisk to hit his dramatic game-winning home run in the twelfth inning which got the Red Sox to Game Seven. Evans had several big hits in that series, too, hitting .292 with one home run and five RBI.

Fred Lynn

Fred Lynn was one of the most dynamic Red Sox players of the 1970s and a huge “what if” in their history. What if he hadn’t been bothered by injuries? What if he’d played his entire career in Boston? In any event, the Red Sox got the best out of Lynn during the seven seasons he spent with the team from 1974 to 1980.

Coming up late in the 1974 season, Lynn had perhaps the greatest rookie season of all time in 1975, hitting .331 with 21 home runs, 105 RBI and leading the league in runs scored (103), doubles (47), slugging percentage (.566), and OPS (.967). He won both the American League Rookie of the Year and the AL MVP awards, the first player in baseball history to win both in the same season.

In his Red Sox career, Lynn put up a .322 batting average with 124 home runs, 521 RBI, 944 hits, 523 runs scored, an OBP of .396, and an OPS of .937. Despite his all-out approach to playing, he was remarkably durable in Boston, playing in 828 games over seven seasons. He won Gold Glove awards in 1975, 1978, 1979, and 1980 and might be the single greatest center fielder the Red Sox have ever had (Jackie Bradley is probably the only one who compares defensively).

Unfortunately, Lynn’s hard charging, all-out style of play led to the knee problems that would slow his career down when he was traded away after the 1980 season. The fact that he was traded in the same offseason that the team let Carlton Fisk and Rick Burleson go has upset Red Sox fans ever since and signaled the end of an era.

Carlton Fisk

One of the greatest catchers to ever play the game, Carlton Fisk was a native New Englander who was drafted by the Red Sox in 1967 and made his debut in 1969. After shuttling between AAA Pawtucket and Boston (with another short stint in the big leagues in 1971), Fisk became the Red Sox everyday catcher in 1972, a position he held for the duration of the 1970s.

Fisk was beloved by Red Sox fans in the 1970s for his hard-nosed style and his ferocity at defending the plate and standing up to runners; he also wasn’t afraid to get into a brawl with any Yankees player who crossed him. He won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 1972 as well as a Gold Glove that year and was an All-Star every year of the 1970s after that except for 1975 and 1979.

Between 1971 and 1980, Fisk hit .290 with 162 home runs and 568 RBI. He was a durable backstop, playing in 130 or more games in every season except for three seasons when injuries hampered him. In June 1974 he tore his knee up in a potentially career-ending injury but was able to recover from the surgery. He re-injured the knee in spring training of 1975 and didn’t return to the field until June of that year. In 1979, a rib injury limited him to only 91 games.

Besides all of the fights with the Yankees (especially Thurman Munson and Lou Piniella), Fisk will forever be known for the dramatic game winning home run he hit in Game Six of the 1975 World Series; the Red Sox even named the left field foul pole after him in 2005.

The blunder (whether deliberate or not) to let Fisk become a free agent and leave Boston after the 1980 season is one of the worst in Red Sox history, but there will always be Fisk’s time in the 1970s to look back fondly upon.

Bill Lee

If Luis Tiant was a fun, colorful personality, then what would you call Bill Lee? The man nicknamed “Spaceman” pitched for the Red Sox from 1969 to 1978 and his iconoclastic and free-spirited ways were directly at odds with baseball’s more traditional conservatism. It didn’t matter, though, because when it came to what he did on the mound, Lee was one of the Red Sox best in the 1970s.

Lee was mainly a relief pitcher in the early years of his career and didn’t become a starter until the 1973 season when he went 17-11. He won 17 games again in both 1974 and 1975 and was brilliant during the 1975 regular season. He pitched really well in both of his World Series starts that year, but earned no decisions in both; he exited both games with the lead only for the bullpen to give it up.

From 1970-1978, Lee racked up a 93-65 record with a 3.81 ERA and 533 strikeouts. He battled arm issues after 1975 (including a separated shoulder suffered in a bench-clearing brawl against the Yankees in 1976). Lee also clashed with Red Sox manager Don Zimmer which eventually precipitated his trade to the Montreal Expos after the 1978 season. Still, in the mid-1970s when the Red Sox almost won a World Series, Lee was one of their best pitchers.

Rick Burleson

The man nicknamed “Rooster” was so intense that teammate Bill Lee once said “some guys hate to lose, but Rick got angry when the score was even tied.”  Rick Burleson came up from the minors in 1974 and was the Red Sox shortstop until after the 1980 season when he was traded to the California Angels.

During those seven seasons, he evolved from a shaky defensive shortstop into one of the best in the American League, even winning a Gold Glove in 1979. He was an All-Star in 1977, 1978, and 1979 and was durable, too, playing in 145 games or more from 1975 to 1980.

At the plate, he put up a .275 average with 38 home runs, 360 RBI. Between 1975 and 1980 he had 145 hits or more in every season and topped 600 or more at bats from 1977 to 1980 (with 580 and 540 in 1975 and 1976, respectively) while striking out very little.

After being traded in 1981, he had one more moment at Fenway Park when he played against his former team as a member of the California Angels in the 1986 ALCS.

Dennis Eckersley

While his time in Boston spanned from 1978 to 1984 and straddled the two decades, this list is the best place to put Dennis Eckersley since his best seasons as a starter happened in a Red Sox uniform in the late 1970s. Acquired in a trade with the Cleveland Indians in March 1978 (precipitated by Eck’s wife having an affair with one of his Indians teammates), the trade paid immediate dividends for Boston.

Eck went 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA and 162 strikeouts in his first season with the Red Sox in 1978 and helped them win 99 games before they fell to the Yankees in the infamous one game playoff at the end of the season. He was almost as good in 1979 when he went 17-10 with a 2.99 ERA and 150 strikeouts. He tailed off a bit in 1980 with a 12-14 records, an ERA of 4.28, and 121 strikeouts.

From 1981 to 1984, though, he struggled and posted a 35-38 record with a dismal 4.66 ERA and 316 strikeouts. He was eventually traded during the 1984 season to the Chicago Cubs for Bill Buckner. Eck would eventually go on to become one of the greatest closers in baseball history with the Oakland A’s and would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame when his career was over.

However, he was a vital part of the rotation for those great 1978 and 1979 Red Sox teams that came up just a bit short of the postseason.

Rico Petrocelli

Spending his entire thirteen year career with the Red Sox from 1963 to 1976, Rico Petrocelli was a member of the Impossible Dream team in 1967 as well as the 1975 team that almost took down the Big Red Machine. After spending the 1960s as the Red Sox shortstop, he moved to third base in 1971 and played there for the majority of the remainder of his career.

Between 1970 and 1976, Petrocelli had a .245 average (brought down by his injury-plagued final two seasons), 110 home runs, and 471 RBI. He hit 29 home runs in 1970 and 28 in 1971 and drove in a career high 103 RBI in 1970. He was also stellar in the field and in particular in the 1975 postseason when he didn’t commit and error in either the ALCS or the World Series.

He played in 145 or more games from 1970 to 1972 and was on his way to doing that in 1973 before his season ended in August due to elbow surgery. In 1974, he was hit in the head by a pitch in mid-September and was never the same. The beaning led to inner ear problems which plagued Petrocelli’s career and eventually ended it after the 1976 season. After playing in 129 games in 1974, he only appeared in 115 in 1975 and 85 in 1976.

Honorable Mentions

Here’s a list of the Red Sox players from the 1970s who didn’t quite make the top ten, in no particular order. Butch Hobson manned third base for the Red Sox from 1975 to 1980, taking over the position from Rico Petrocelli. In 1977 he set he franchise record for home runs and RBI by a third baseman with 30 HR and 112 RBI and for his Red Sox career he hit .252 with 94 home runs and 358 RBI.

Rick Wise spent from 1974 to 1977 with the Red Sox and helped them win the pennant in 1975 with a 19-12 record. He went 47-28 for the Sox in those four seasons before he was traded to the Indians for Dennis Eckersley in 1978. Cecil Cooper began his career with the Red Sox in 1971 and played for them until 1976. The first baseman was a solid hitter and excellent defender who unfortunately didn’t find his power stroke until after he left Boston when he was traded to the Brewers in 1977.

George “Boomer” Scott began his career with the Sox in 1966 and was on the team until being traded to the Brewers in 1972. He came back to Boston in 1977 and played for the Red Sox again until 1979. His best Red Sox season of the 1970s came in 1977 when he hit 33 home runs and drove in 95 runs, but he was usually good for at least 15-20 homers a season while in Boston.

The last two players are a pair who were known far more for their defensive prowess than what they did with a bat. Rick Miller‘s major league career spanned from 1971 to 1985 and he spent all but the years of 1978 to 1980 with the Red Sox. While he only hit 15 home runs between 1971 and 1977, he was an excellent outfielder and had a career fielding percentage of .986. Finally, longtime Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy spent the final seven seasons of his ten year career with the Red Sox, from 1977 to 1984.

His best years were in the 1970s when he was named an All Star (1978) and helped the Red Sox get to within a game of winning the division that season before they lost the heartbreaking one game playoff to the Yankees. He was a good defensive second baseman who hit for good average and stole a fair amount of bases while hitting for absolutely no power.