Reflecting on the longest home runs in Boston Red Sox history, from legendary tales to the distances confirmed with modern analytics.
The home run is one of the most exciting plays in baseball. The further, the better. Our jaws drop while watching some of the majestic moonshots fly out of the park. The Boston Red Sox have had their fair share of mammoth home runs throughout their storied history.
The “red seat” at Fenway Park immediately comes to mind when discussing the longest home runs in franchise history. This seat located 33 rows up in the right field bleachers marks the spot where Ted Williams supposedly hit the furthest home run in this history of the ballpark.
The legend of the red seat has become part of the Fenway lore. As the story goes, the ball flew into the stands beyond the bullpen and struck the straw hat of a fan sitting where the infamous red seat now resides before bouncing another 12 rows back. The ball was initially estimated to have traveled 450 feet but the Red Sox claimed it was 502 feet when they later measured.
There’s still some debate as to how reliable that estimate is and good luck trying to find video evidence of that moment from 1946.
Technology has created more reliable ways to track home run distance. The ability to review with instant replay has allowed us to appreciate how much these massive home runs were crushed.
If you’re seeking examples you can confirm with your own eyes, we can look to Manny Ramirez.
In June of the 2001 season, Ramirez hit a pair of incredible shots in a multi-home run game against the Toronto Blue Jays. The first one crashed into the Fleet sign above the Green Monster in left-center field, an estimated 363 feet.
Manny topped himself in the third inning with a moonshot into the top of the light tower in left field. NESN analyst Jerry Remy said it best, “How in the world are they going to measure how far this thing has gone?”
Who knows where that ball would have landed it it hadn’t been knocked down by the light tower. Ramirez was credited with a 501-foot home run, one foot shy of Teddy Ballgame’s Fenway record.
There must be something about the Blue Jays that brought out the power in Manny’s bat. He always loved hitting in Toronto. A few weeks prior to that epic multi-homer game at Fenway, Ramirez hammered a ball into the fifth deck in left field at the Rogers Center. The estimated 491 feet was the longest in the history of the stadium.
Baseball analytics continues to evolve and these days we have more accurate ways of measuring how far the ball travels. Statcast provides data on batted ball distance, exit velocity, launch angle, and more.
Unfortunately, Statcast data only tracks back to 2015. The longest home run by a Red Sox hitter in the Stacast era belongs to…. Jackie Bradley Jr.
The definition of a no doubter. pic.twitter.com/tYf8bsWKZe
— Red Sox (@RedSox) August 28, 2019
The defensive wizard isn’t typically known for his power but his 478-foot blast into the third deck in right field against the Rockies last season was a sight to behold. Granted, he benefited from hitting in the thin air of Colorado but this was a mammoth shot even by Coors Field standards.
A home run of that magnitude was still unusual for JBJ. While he had the longest home run, his average homer was a mediocre 395 feet and his 165 average batted ball distance was the lowest among qualified hitters on the team last season.
Bradley’s home run is the furthest measured by the modern technology that only became available in recent years. Manny’s undoubtedly was further but the tools used to measure weren’t as reliable nearly 20 years ago and the light stand stopped the ball from reaching its maximum potential. The club record set by the Splendid Splinter is only as reliable as the stories told about the red seat.
Perhaps one day we’ll see a ball travel over 500 feet off the bat of a Red Sox hitter and have the statistical data to confirm it.