5 Things About Boston Red Sox Hall of Famers You Might Not Know

Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and Joe Cronin are three Boston Red Sox Hall of Famers whose names appear frequently in the club's record books. Williams in particular dominates one category after another when it comes to Boston Red Sox hitting standards, while Yaz and Cronin also have wonderful career statistics that almost every Beantown fan is familiar with. But if I traveled to Massachusetts and questioned the average Red Sox fan about their trio of former heroes of the diamond, would they be able to give me a correct answer regarding certain aspects of their days in the game? Here are 5 things that you might not know about these 3 Boston Red Sox Hall of Famers.

1. Ted Williams won the Triple Crown twice, but didn't win the MVP in either year!

As incredible a statement as this is, it is true. In 1942 Williams hit .356 with 36 homers and 137 RBI to win his first Triple Crown of batting, but the baseball writers named Joe Gordon of the Yanks the MVP. Gordon had hit .322 with 18 homers and 103 RBI, but Williams had been chastised during the year for avoiding the wartime draft by listing himself as his mother's sole provider, which was the case. The sportswriters who voted for the MVP obviously went out of their way to teach Ted a lesson, but he wound up enlisting the next year and missing 3 entire seasons of his prime in the game. In '47, Williams hit .343 with 32 round trippers and 114 RBI to garner his second Triple Crown, yet was edged by Joe DiMaggio by a single point in the voting, despite having far superior numbers to the Yankee Clipper. Williams lost out on a third Crown by mere percentage points in the batting race to George Kell, but did manage to be named MVP that year, 1949.

2. Williams never had 200 hits in a season!

Another amazing fact, but part of the reason is that he walked so many times and the other is that after 1951, Williams never played in more than 136 games. He had bases on balls totals that led the AL 8 different times, greatly reducing his chances at 200 hits. Williams only had as many as 190 hits on 2 occasions; teammate Johnny Pesky, in comparison, made 200 hits for 3 straight years, while walking a fraction of the number of times Ted did.

3. Joe Cronin had remarkable RBI totals for a shortstop!

8 times in his career Cronin had over 100 runs batted in for a single season, doing it 3 times with Boston after coming over from the Senators. Twice he had 126 while with Washington, ridiculous stats for shortstops of that era. While with the Red Sox he had RBI totals of 94, 95 twice, 107, 110, and 111 in a 7 year span starting in 1935. His successor at shortstop, Pesky, never had more than 55 in the 3 years he played the position; Yankee legend Phil Rizzuto, another Hall of Fame inductee, never had more than 68 in a year in 13 seasons in baseball.

4. Carl Yastrzemski had just 5 seasons with more than 100 RBI!

Yaz is 12th all-time in runs batted in for all of baseball with over 1,800, but he eclipsed the 100 RBI plateau only 5 times. He never had more than the 121 of his "Impossible Dream" season of 1967 and 3 times finished a year with 102. Yaz led the league in the category just once, in '67, and finished in the top 3 for RBI only one other time.

5. Yaz won the 1968 batting title with the lowest average ever to win one!

The American League almost suffered the embarrassment of having a batting crown winner under .300, but Yaz managed to hit .301. If not for Yaz, the winner would have been Oakland's Danny Cater, who batted .290! Yaz's winning average was easily the lowest ever, with Snuffy Sternweiss of the Yankees hitting .309 in 1945 to win it with the next lowest. Tony Gwynn's .313 in 1988 is the lowest batting average to ever lead the National League.

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