Top 100 Red Sox Extra: Bill Carrigan

(This blog counted down the Top 100 Red Sox of all-time -- from Keith Foulke to Ted Williams -- in March and April, wrapping up about a week ago. For the entire list, click the "Top100" tab at the bottom of this entry or just click here.)

Red Sox manager Terry Francona was asked by a camera crew on Friday to offer his thoughts on the career of Dom DiMaggio.

"How good of a player was he?" the television reporter asked.

Francona made a face.

"How old do you think I am?" he shot back.

A few hours later, after Francona's Red Sox had beaten the Tampa Bay Rays to earn their manager his 489th career win with the franchise, no one asked Francona to offer his thoughts about Bill Carrigan -- the win with whom Francona had just drawn even on the team's all-time list for managerial wins.

But they should have.

Francona and Carrigan are forever intertwined in Red Sox history for succeeding where so many others failed. The team went through 32 managers between 1918 and 2003 and didn't win a single World Series title.

Francona and Carrigan are the only Red Sox managers in history to win two World Series titles. The two actually are third and fourth -- Francona edged ahead after Sunday night's win over the Rays -- on the all-time list, trailing Joe Cronin (1,071) and Pinky Higgins (560). But only Carrigan ever saw popularity ever approach what Francona enjoys now -- and those championships had a lot to do with it.

Carrigan didn't just play the Francona role with with the Red Sox during his stint from 1906-16. He played the Jason Varitek role, too. He became the team's everyday catcher starting in 1909, hitting .296 with 13 doubles, and he hit 11 doubles and drove in 53 runs a year later. (He had seven at-bats in the 1912 World Series but went hitless.)

In 1913, though, the Red Sox started badly in defense of their 1912 championship. In early July, ownership fired manager Jake Stahl and installed Carrigan in his place. Carrigan was a native of Maine who played college football at Holy Cross before an injury sidetracked his football career and nudged him full-time toward the baseball diamond.

He never turned out to be all that much as a hitter. But if you measure a catcher by how well his pitchers perform -- something right out of the Gospel according to Varitek -- Carrigan was a master. In 1912, Smoky Joe Wood went 34-5 with a 1.91 ERA while Bucky O'Brien, Hugh Bedient and Ray Collins all had sub-3.00 ERAs. In 1915, Wood (1.49), Ernie Shore (1.64), Rube Foster (2.11), Dutch Leonard (2.36) and Babe Ruth (2.44) all had sub-3.00 ERAs.

Ruth, in fact, received a key piece of advice from his catcher in 1914: When he threw the curveball, Carrigan noticed, he stuck the tip of his tongue slightly out of his mouth. Carrigan pointed this out to Ruth and convinced his pitcher to keep his mouth sealed shut during his delivery so as not to tip off his pitches.

And in 1916, after Wood held out and Tris Speaker was traded to Cleveland, Carrigan took total control of his team. He even appealed to the competitiveness of his pitchers by refusing to abide by a set rotation; instead, he'd stand up in front of the team and ask, "Who wants the ball?" Ruth, Leonard, Shore, Foster and Carl Mays all were sensational all year along, and the Red Sox captured their second straight World Series and third in five years.

After that World Series, though, Carrigan hung 'em up for good. He was just 33 years old, but with so much accomplishment to his name, he chose his family over the game and headed home to Maine. He eventually would come out of retirement in the late 1920s to try to guide the Harry Frazee-depleted Red Sox back toward the top of the standings; that, though, was a task too tall for anyone, and he retired again after three losing seasons.

With Francona passing Carrigan in career wins this weekend, he probably can safely be considered the greatest manager in Red Sox history. But the accomplishments of Carrigan 90 years ago shouldn't be dismissed too quickly.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 1

It all comes down to this -- and there are no surprises at the top of the list. (For the whole list, click here.)

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B
3. Cy Young, P
2. Pedro Martinez

1. Ted Williams
As if it could be anyone else. The Splendid Splinter -- where did this nickname come from, anyway? -- is first in Red Sox history in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs and walks; if Carl Yastrzemski hadn't played 23 seasons, Williams would be first in Red Sox history in hits, doubles, total bases and RBI, too.

(Of the top 10 slugging percentage seasons in Red Sox history, Williams has six. Of the top 10 on-base percentage seasons in Red Sox history, Williams has 10.)

He may, in fact, be the greatest hitter who ever lived.

He's also probably the greatest old hitter who ever lived. (We're excluding Barry Bonds from this conversation because all evidence points to him having had, um, help.) Check out the all-time leaders in OPS+ by age:

35: Babe Ruth, 211 (2nd: Ted Williams, 201) (3rd: Nap Lajoie, 199)
36: Babe Ruth, 218 (2nd: Ted Williams, 209) (3rd: Chipper Jones: 174)
37: Babe Ruth, 201 (2nd: Hank Aaron, 194) (3rd: Ted Williams, 172)
38: Ted Williams, 233 (2nd: Babe Ruth, 176) (3rd: Bob Johnson, 174)
(Bob Johnson played for the Red Sox as a 38-year-old in 1944. He hit 25 homers a year while playing for the Philadelphia A's in the 1930s.)
39: Ted Williams, 179 (2nd: Hank Aaron: 177) (3rd: Babe Ruth: 161)
40: Willie Mays, 158 (2nd: Edgar Martinez, 141) (3rd: Moises Alou: 138)
41: Ted Williams, 190 (2nd: Brian Downing, 138) (3rd: Stan Musial, 137)

Look at those numbers. Look at those margins.

Williams' 1957 and 1958 seasons rank among the most remarkable in baseball history. He was 38 years old in 1957 when he hit .388 with 38 home runs; he led the American League in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. In many ways, he had better numbers than American League MVP Mickey Mantle.

A year later, at the age of 39, he again led the American League in batting average and on-base percentage. He hit 26 home runs. He even hit 26 home runs and legged out two triples.

And two years later, after he hit like a typical 40-year-old at the age of 40, he bounced back with a .316 batting average and 29 home runs at the age of 41.

There should be no debate: Ted Williams was the greatest Red Sox player of all-time. He'd have been the greatest Red Sox player of all-time even if he'd retired at the age of 35 the way he'd threatened to do. (True story: He announced, "That's it," at the end of the 1954 season and sat out the first month of the season before signing a contract to return -- a move many suspect had a lot to do with the divorce settlement that was finalized on May 11, 1955.)

But the way he hit in the twilight of his career eliminated any doubt.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 2

For the complete rundown of the Top 100 Red Sox, click here.

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B
3. Cy Young, P

You can see where we're going with this.

2. Pedro Martinez, P
There's no question Pedro Martinez was one of the most dominant pitchers of the Steroid Era. You can argue that, with his 1999 and 2000 seasons, he pitched two of the top three seasons in the last 20 years, with only Greg Maddux's ridiculous 1995 season (19-2, 1.63 ERA) also in the discussion.

But there's an interesting little surprise that awaits those who check out Martinez's adjusted ERA+ numbers. His ERA+ in 1999, the season in which he probably should have won the American League's Most Valuable Player award, was 243. ("It may well be another century before another pitcher manages to do what Martinez did in 1999," writes Glenn Stout in the book "Red Sox Century.")

That ERA+ of 243, though, isn't the best in franchise history. It isn't even the best in Martinez's career. The best ERA+ in Martinez's career, the best ERA+ in Red Sox history and the best ERA+ in baseball history is 291 -- the ERA+ he turned in during the 2000 season.

Which season was better? Let's take a look:

1999
* 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 313 K's and 37 BB's;
* Opponents hit .205/.248/.288;
* Five complete games, including a three-hit shutout of the Blue Jays on Sept. 21;
* Struck out 17 in a 3-1 win at Yankee Stadium in which he retired 22 in a row after Chili Davis' home run in the second inning;
* Struck out at least 10 hitters 19 times;
* Struck out at least 15 hitters six times;
* Struck out five of the six hitters he faced in the All-Star Game, including Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa -- Matt Williams reached on an error but was caught stealing;
* Bonus: Threw six no-hit innings out of the bullpen in Game 5 of the American League Division Series, the most dramatic playoff game the Red Sox had ever won;
* Adjusted ERA+ of 243.

2000
* 18-6, 1.74 ERA, 284 K's and 32 BB's;
* Not once -- not once -- did his ERA creep above 2.00;
* Opponents hit .167/.213/.259;
* Seven complete games, including a two-hit shutout of the Orioles on May 12, a six-hit shutout of the White Sox on July 23 and a one-hit shutout of the Devil Rays on Aug. 29;
* Allowed just four hits (three singles and a double) in a four-hit shutout at Yankee Stadium, outdueling Roger Clemens to win by a 2-0 score;
* Struck out at least 10 hitters 15 times;
* Struck out at least 15 hitters three times;
* Two words: Gerald Williams;
* In case you're tempted to hold that 18-6 record against him: Held opponents to a .175 batting average, a .215 on-base percentage and a .281 slugging percentage in his six losses;
* Adjusted ERA+ of 291.

Pedro's 1999 gets most of the hype. Pedro's 1999 earned him more MVP votes (eight first-place votes; he received zero in 2000). Pedro's 1999 has gone down as the gold standard of pitching performances for an entire season -- up there with Bob Gibson's 1968, Ron Guidry's 1978, Dwight Gooden's 1985 and pretty much Walter Johnson's entire career.

But Pedro's 2000 was better.

Pedro's 2000, in fact, was the greatest single season for any pitcher in the history of baseball.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 3

You could make a reasonable argument for either of two pitchers to claim the No. 2 spot on the Top 100 list. (If you're hoping for a surprise pick at No. 1, well, you're going to be disappointed. There's not much suspense there.)

Here's the Top 10 list so far:
(For the full countdown, click here.)
10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B

And the second-greatest pitcher in Red Sox history is:

3. Denton True "Cy" Young
Had he pitched his entire career with the Red Sox, he'd be a clear choice for top pitcher in franchise history -- and he'd probably be No. 1 on this list. He weas 34 years old, though, when he jumped from the St. Louis Browns to the brand-new American League franchise in Boston; he'd already won 30 games three different times and thrown, to that point, 418 complete games. (That total alone would rank him 16th in baseball history.)

He would win 192 more games with the Red Sox; he's tied with Roger Clemens for first in franchise history in that category. His ERA tucked nicely in at 1.99, second-best in franchise history. No one in franchise history has a lower WHIP (0.970).

He was coming off a 19-19 season with the St. Louis Browns in which his ERA had skyrocketed -- skyrocketed! -- to 3.00. In 1901, though, he went 33-10 with a league-best 1.62 ERA; he pitched 371 1/3 innings, starting 41 games and completing 38 of them. His adjusted ERA+ of 216 ranks fifth in Red Sox history for a single season.

A year later, he went 32-11 with a 2.15 ERA and 41 complete games. Ho-hum.

In 1903, he went 28-9 with a 2.08 ERA and 34 complete games, including seven shutouts. He even earned two saves. And in the World Series, he turned in a 1.85 ERA; he struck out 17 and walked just four. His best effort came when he allowed only two runs -- both unearned -- in nine innings in Game 5. He came back on two days' rest to throw nine more innings, allowing three runs, and earn his second win of the series in Game 7.

By the time he was finished -- he played out the string with Cleveland as a 42-, 43- and 44-year-old before an abbreviated stint with the Boston Braves -- he'd won 511 games and sealed a legacy as the greatest pitcher baseball has ever seen.

We'd be remiss, though, if we finished without addressing the really pressing question: Where did that nickname come from, anyway?

He was pitching for Canton, Ohio, in the Tri-State League, a minor league with an affiliation agreement with the National League and American Association. He'd just agreed to a deal that would pay him $60 a month for his services. He was eager to impress his new team, so he threw a couple of fastballs against a fence at the home park.

"I threw the ball so hard," he later said, "I tore a couple of boards off the grandstand. One of the fellows said the stand looked like a cyclone struck it."

By the spring, the local newspaper was listing "Cyclone, p" in its box scores. By 1956, his name was synonymous with the best pitcher in baseball.

Coming up: Pedro.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 4

With the Yankees set to visit Fenway Park this weekend, let's take a look at a slugger who could have hit his home runs for the Bronx Bombers and not the Red Sox:

(For the entire countdown, click here.)
10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF
5. Roger Clemens, P

4. Jimmie Foxx, 1B
"Home Run" Baker, managing in the Eastern Shore League in Maryland in 1924, robbed us of perhaps the greatest switch-hitting slugger in baseball history when he told a teenage Jimmie Foxx that "no good hitter has to turn around." Foxx, already perhaps the best young athlete in Maryland by the age of 16, had tinkered with hitting from the left side of the plate but abandoned the effort upon the urging of his manager (and hero).

Baker, though, didn't do any more tinkering than that. Good thing. Foxx eventually grew into the second-greatest slugger of baseball's pre-World War II era; when "The Beast" retired, only Babe Ruth had more career home runs than his 534.

What Baker almost did, though, was steer Foxx to the New York Yankees. With the Yankees visiting Philadelphia midway through the season, Baker paid a visit to the team from which he'd retired just two years earlier. Manager Miller Huggins, however, told Baker that had no interest in a 16-year-old -- this losing the chance to plug Foxx into a lineup that still featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. (Imagine Foxx with the 1927 Yankees. Frightening.)

When Huggins passed, Baker went to see Philadelphia manager Connie Mack -- the manager for whom he'd played during the first half of his career. Mack sent a scout to follow Baker's team (and Foxx) for two weeks; when the reports came back positive, the Athletics purchased the rights to Foxx for $2,000.

Five years later, Foxx hit 33 home runs and drove in 100 runs as a 21-year-old first baseman. Three years after that, he won his first MVP award -- and a year later, he won another one.

Mack eventually had to cash in on his investment; he dismantled his A's in the aftermath of the Great Depression, selling Foxx to the Red Sox for $150,000.

Foxx hit 41 home runs and drove in 143 runs in 1936, his first season with the Red Sox. Two years later, he hit .349with 50 home runs and an American League record 175 RBIas the Red Sox won 88 games, their highest total since 1917. (If not for Hank Greenberg's 58 home runs, Foxx would have won the Triple Crown.)

A year after that, playing with rookie Ted Williams, Foxx hit .360 with 35 home runs and drove in 105 runs as the Red Sox won 89 games and again finished second. Even though he played just 6 1/2 seasons with the Red Sox, he still ranks ninth in franchise history in home runs (222) and ranks second to Ted Williams in on-base percentage (.429) and slugging percentage (.605).

And just think: He could have been a Yankee.

Coming up next: Pedro or Cy?

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 5

If we were going to do the Mount Rushmore gimmick, which we're not, here's the last of the faces that would miss out on the honor:

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P
6. Manny Ramirez, OF

5. Roger Clemens
We all know how great Clemens was in 1986 and 1987 and 1990. But we also talk all the time about how bad he was in 1993 and 1995 and 1996 -- was he really that bad?

From the Gospel According to Bill Simmons:
On Roger Clemens in 1993: "Clemens signed a four-year, $20 million contract and took much of the next three-plus years off, almost like a professor who gets tenure and doens't feel like grading papers anymore. Unveiling a historic double chin, ... Clemens battled arm problems en route to his first losing season."

On Roger Clemens in 1995: "After rededicating himself for the strike-shortened '94 season (9-7, 2.85 ERA), he arrived the following spring like he was auditioning for the John Goodman Story. ... When Clemens squandered his only playoff start, that only fueled those 'can't win the big one' doubts."

On Roger Clemens in 1996: "Chunky, disinterested and increasingly agitated about Boston's failure to offer him a contract extension, the Rocket turned on his jets once the team fell out of playoff contention, going 6-2 over his last 10 starts and striking out 20 Tigers in mid-September. Classic Roger, through and through. You could always count on him when it mattered least."

Harsh stuff.

To be fair, this came from a column Simmons wrote for ESPN.com entitled "Is Clemens the Anti-Christ?", so you knew it wasn't exactly going to be a love letter.

Still, though, harsh stuff.

Clemens finished in the top three in the American League in Cy Young Award voting in 1990, 1991 and 1992. He won the award (for the third time in his career) in 1991, but his more impressive season might have been 1992, when he had a 2.41 ERA and won 18 games for a team that finished last in the American League East.

Over the next four years, though, he won 30 games -- total -- and only once had an ERA under 3.00. The numbers are there to make a case, as Simmons did, that Clemens took three and a half years off. But is it really true?

Let's take a look, shall we?

1993: A lousy year. There's no getting around it. But he actually started off hot; he had a 1.73 ERA and a pair of complete games through eight starts, including a complete-game shutout at Baltimore in May in which he struck out 13. He then started to scuffle; he had a 6.48 ERA from mid-May until he went on the disabled list with a groin injury at the end of June. After he came back, he was hit-and-miss -- he gave up five or more earned runs in seven of his last 10 starts.

All in all, he went 11-14 with a 4.46 ERA and 160 strikeouts; it was the first time he'd failed to top 200 strikeouts since 1985. His ERA+ was 104, the lowest it would ever get between his first full season and when he turned 35 years old. (To compare him to some contemporaries: Greg Maddux's lowest ERA+ in his prime was 125, at age 33, but Tom Glavine got down to 106 when he was 28 years old.)

1994: A pretty good year, all things considered. The win total (nine) has to be taken with a grain of salt given that the strike cost him the last month and a half of the season -- and after a couple of subpar outings to start the year, he went 6-2 with a 1.44 ERA and 90 strikeouts between April 15 and June 11. In July and August, he had a 2.44 ERA and took a couple of hard-luck losses. (He lost one game in which he allowed two runs in seven innings; he lost another game in which he allowed three runs in eight innings.)

All in all, he was 9-7 with a 2.85 ERA as well as an American League-leading ERA+ of 177 -- the second-best ERA+ of his career to that point.

1995: Certainly not a bad year considering the shoulder injury that cost him the first two months of the season. (Simmons blames Clemens' poor conditioning for his injuries; that might be it, but the fact that he threw at least 225 regular-season innings every year from 1986-1992 might have had something to do with it, too.)

He allowed five earned runs in five innings in his first start back, but he had a 1.90 ERA in his next four starts and, after a series of stinkers in July, a 2.88 ERA in August and September as the Red Sox clinched their first division title in five years.

And that playoff start, the one that "only fueled those 'can't win the big one' doubts," Clemens retired the first nine Indians in order and wiggled out of trouble in the fourth, thanks in part to a strikeout of Albert Belle with two runners on base. He surrendered three runs on a walk and three hits in the sixth, but he left the game after seven innings having allowed just those three runs on five hits to go along with five strikeouts and one walk.

1996: The contract year. This is the year that seems to grate on Simmons the most. Let's read the case for the prosecution one more time:

"Chunky, disinterested and increasingly agitated about Boston's failure to offer him a contract extension, the Rocket turned on his jets once the team fell out of playoff contention, going 6-2 over his last 10 starts and striking out 20 Tigers in mid-September. Classic Roger, through and through. You could always count on him when it mattered least."

Again, this merits a closer look. The Red Sox went 14-20 in Clemens' starts in 1996, including 0-6 in April as they tumbled quickly into last place in the American League East. Clemens, though, had a 4.17 ERA in April -- far from spectacular, sure, but not exactly disastrous, either. His worst start was a loss to Cleveland on April 21 in which he gave up five runs in 5 2/3 innings. His best might have been five days later against Kansas City; it was a start in which he gave up two runs in seven innings while striking out 11 -- only to take the loss because the Red Sox couldn't manage more than one run through the first eight innings.

And five days after that, he went the distance against Detroit to earn his first win of the season; he allowed one run on six hits, striking out 13 and walking no one. Yet another gem was next on the agenda; he allowed just two runs in 7 2/3 innings against Milwaukee and struck out 10. At that point, he had a 3.38 ERA.

From there, his ERA began to climb slowly northward. He allowed six earned runs at Toronto on May 12, four earned runs to Seattle on May 23 and six earned runs at Oakland on May 28. He then allowed six earned runs against the Yankees on July 16, seven earned runs at Kansas City on Aug. 1 and five earned runs against Chicago on Sept. 13.

Those clunkers, though, tended to be sandwiched around some classic Clemens-type outings -- a 10-strikeout effort at Detroit on July 11, an 11-strikeout effort in a complete-game win against Oakland on Aug. 22 and, of course, that 20-strikeout game at Detroit on Sept. 18.

He finished the year with a 3.63 ERA -- by far the best among Red Sox starters. (Tom Gordon had a 5.59 ERA; Aaron Sele had a 5.32 ERA.) His ERA+ even ranked him fifth in the American League ahead of Kevin Appier, Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina.

A year later, of course, he'd go 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA and win the first of his two Cy Young Awards with the Toronto Blue Jays. It's fascinating, though, that he's so villified for using Dan Duquette's snub as motivation to turn himself back into an elite pitcher -- particularly because he wasn't nearly as bad in 1994, 1995 and 1996 as some would have you believe.

Coming up: The final infielder on our list -- and the second-greatest power hitter in the history of the franchise.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 6

Let's take another glance at the Top 100 list -- it's more fun than watchin Jon Lester get knocked around by the A's, isn't it?

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF
7. Lefty Grove, P

You knew he was going to surface around here somewhere:

6. Manny Ramirez, OF
Two players rank among the top five in Red Sox history in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and home runs: Ted Williams and Manny Ramirez. At some point, probably after he's retired and after he's been elected to the Hall of Fame, your average Red Sox fan will realize what a privilege it was to watch someone hit the way Ramirez hit.

We've all heard the Manny-being-Manny stories -- and we've all formed an opinion about whether Ramirez quit on the Red Sox or was manipulated by Scott Boras or had just reached the end of his time in Boston the way so many others have. (Baseball Prospectus does a better job than we could here of sorting through the hype and the myth -- pointing out, for example, that Ramirez hit .347 and slugged .587 in July of 2008 while playing in 22 of the Red Sox's 24 games.)

That's all in the past -- and so too are the 7 1/2 years in which Ramirez hit the ball better than anyone has hit the ball for the Red Sox since, oh, about 1960.

Just for fun, here are a few random statistics from the ongoing career of one of the best righthanded hitters the game has ever seen:

* In home games, he's hitting .315; in road games, he's hitting .314. (As an indication of how unusual this is: American Leaguers a year ago hit .276 at home and .259 on the road. Alex Rodriguez is a career .314 hitter at home and .298 hitter on the road.)

* With the bases empty, Ramirez has hit .299 and slugged .567. With runners on base, he's hit .330 and slugged .619.

* With a runner on third and less than two outs, he's hit .393 and slugged .693. That's getting the run home.

* When swinging at the first pitch, Ramirez has hit .376 and slugged .756; he's hit 94 of his career home runs on the first pitch -- including this home run.

* His career slugging percentage before the All-Star Game is .581; his career slugging percentage after the All-Star Game is .607.

* As a pinch-hitter, he's a .115 career hitter.

* His worst inning, by far, is the ninth inning; he's hit .267 and slugged .480 in the ninth inning in his career. That's the only inning in which he has a sub-.500 slugging percentage. Then again, if his team is hitting in the ninth inning, he's generally facing closers. That might have something to do with it. (He has a .265 batting average against power pitchers versus .342 against finesse pitchers.)

* He's hit his old team, the Cleveland Indians, harder than any other American League team -- he's got a .352 batting average against Cleveland. He hit just .269 against the Red Sox before Dan Duquette lured him to Boston before the 2001 season; the Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers are the only American League teams against whom he's hitting below .300.

* He has better career numbers in Yankee Stadium (.321 batting average, .605 slugging) than at Fenway Park (.315 batting, .583 slugging).

* And one more: The Red Sox have seen 33 occasions in which players have compiled an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 1.000 of better. Ted Williams has 13 of those seasons. No one else has more than three -- except Manny Ramirez, who did it from 2001-2004 and then again in 2006.

Coming up: One of the two all-time leaders in wins in Red Sox history.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 7

Let's keep moving with the Top 100 list; we're moving toward the five greatest Red Sox players of all-time:

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P
8. Tris Speaker, OF

7. Lefty Grove, P
He wasn't the world's nicest guy. When kids approached him with scorecards to autograph, he often tore up the scorecards and threw them in the kids' faces.

But he was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Before he even got to the Red Sox, he'd won 195 career games (as well as a pair of World Series titles). He'd gone 28-5 in 1930, 31-4 in 1931 and 24-8 in 1933 before Tom Yawkey wrote a $125,000 check to purchase his services.

He promptly, of course, went 8-8 with a 6.50 ERA in his first season in Boston.

Grove, though, had pitched through a sore shoulder that season. A year later, he developed into what he'd been expected to be -- the franchise's best pitcher since Cy Young. He led the American League in ERA (2.70) as the Red Sox finished over .500 (78-75) for the first time since 1918.

Three years after that, Grove went 14-4 and lead the American League in ERA for the third time in four years -- and the Red Sox won 88 games and finished second behind the Yankees. It was the first time they'd finished above fourth place since, again, 1918. A year later, the lefty led the American League in ERA yet again as the Red Sox again finished in second place.

It wasn't the World Series title Yawkey had been seeking as he spread his millions around. But it was a big step forward to a team that had finished last nine times between 1922-32. Grove won 105 games in a Red Sox uniform even though he was 34 years old by the time Yawkey acquired him.

And he never let his temper get in the way of his successes.

"He was a tantrum thrower like me," Ted Williams once said, "but smarter. When he punched a locker, he always did it with his right hand. He was a careful tantrum thrower."

Coming up: With time, we'll appreciate the greatness once again.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 8

With a night game scheduled, why not check back with the Top 100 list this morning?

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P
9. Babe Ruth, P

8. Tris Speaker, CF
More than a few things had to come together for Tris Speaker to become the greatest center fielder in Red Sox history. For one thing, he had to end up in center field -- and to do that, he first had to run into a dead end as a pitcher. His manager in Celburne, Texas, took care of that when he decided to teach his young lefty a lesson and leave him in a game in which he gave up 22 runs.

But the Red Sox still had to find him and keep him. Red Sox scout George Huff wasn't first in line; the St. Louis Browns and Pittsburgh Pirates both had a crack at him and passed. But even when Huff offered $750 for Speaker's contract, the player's mother intervened: "I've never been so insulted in my life. I will not have my boy sold around like a slave for so many dollars."

Even then, after a brief appearance in Boston in 1907, Speaker was completely forgotten by Red Sox ownership and not mailed a contract. Only because he couldn't get a tryout anywhere else -- "I'm sorry, kid, I've already got more players in camp than I know what to do with," wrote Giants manager John McGraw -- did he return to the Red Sox.

If not for his unique determination and his confidence in his abilities, he might have hung it up right then and there. (Here's one example of his determination: He broke his right arm and his collarbone when he was thrown from a horse as a child. To keep playing, he taught himself to throw and hit lefthanded.)

Still the Red Sox didn't have use for him; they loaned him to Little Rock's minor league team in lieu of rent for the use of their ballpark. Only when Speaker emerged as the best player in the Southern Association that year did the Red Sox pay back the rent on the ballpark and reacquire Speaker.

Good thing. They wouldn't have won the 1912 World Series (against McGraw's Giants) without him.

The "Gray Eagle" -- so named in part because of his hair lost its color early -- had a sensational regular season in 1912, hitting .383 with a a league-leading 53 doubles and 12 home runs to go along with 90 RBI and 136 runs scored. His .383 batting average set a franchise record that wouldn't be broken until Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941; no Red Sox player other than Williams has even come within 10 points of .383.

He also played the best defensive center field anyone had ever seen. Said one writer, "Speaker has been credited with revolutioning outfield play, but that is less than true. The word 'revolution' suggests followers, and few outfielders were capable of following Speaker's pattern."

But never did his confidence show itself the way it did in Game 8 of the World Series. He came to the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning with runners on first and second and the Giants ahead by a 2-1 score. Christy Mathewson jammed him with a pitch and induced a foul pop-up -- Mathewson (and Speaker, too, some witnesses have suggested) called for catcher Chief Meyers to make the catch even though first baseman Fred Merkle had a better chance at the ball. It dropped to the ground.

"You just called for the wrong man, Matty," Speaker yelled at the pitcher. "It's going to cost you the ballgame."

Speaker delivered, driving a single to right field to score the tying run. After Mathewson walked Duffy Lewis, Larry Gardner hit a sacrifice fly to score the winning run from third.

Coming up: A pitcher who had 195 career wins before he put on a Red Sox uniform and won No. 300 in Boston.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 9

We'll fill in the Top 10 as we go:

10. Smoky Joe Wood, P

9. Babe Ruth
"He was such a rube that he got more of his share of teasing, some of it not too pleasant. 'The Big Baboon, some of them used to call him behind his back, and then a few got up enough nerve to ridicule him to his face. This started to get under his skin, and when they didn't let up, he finally challenged the whole ballclub. Nobody was so dumb as to take him up on it, so that put an end to that."
-- Harry Hooper, "The Glory of Their Times"

Babe Ruth liked to eat. Babe Ruth liked to drink. Babe Ruth liked to hit a baseball. Everyone knows that.

What's less known is how much Babe Ruth liked to fight.

He liked to fight on the field -- after a walk to the first hitter of a game against Washington, he got himself into an argument with the home-plate umpire and ended up throwing a punch. (Ernie Shore took over in relief and retired 26 in a row; Ruth was suspended for nine games.)

He liked to fight on the train -- during the 1918 World Series, he was punching out the top of straw hats on the team train when he scuffled with someone and wound up with a swollen finger that almost cost the Red Sox a win in Game 4.

He liked to fight in the ring -- after the 1918 season, during a contract dispute, he threatened to retire from baseball and become a boxer.

And he liked to fight in the clubhouse -- after his manager hired a hotel porter to catch him breaking curfew, he stormed into the locker room the next day and shouted, "If you ever come to my room again, you son of a bitch, I'll punch you right in the nose!"

But it was that personality that made him such a great pitcher. In four years with the Red Sox, Ruth compiled a 2.19 ERA and an ERA+ of 125; in 1916, he had a 1.75 ERA and threw nine complete-game shutouts and went the distance in a 2-1 win in 14 innings in Game 2 of the World Series. His ERA ranks fifth in franchise history, and so too does his winning percentage of .659.

Oh, and he could hit a little bit, too. Let's hear from Hooper again:

"Sometimes I still can't believe what I saw: This 19-year-old kid, crude, poorly educated, only lightly brushed by the social veneer we call civilization, gradually transformed into the idol of American youth and the symbol of baseball the world over -- a man loved by more peopleand with an intensity of feeling that perhaps has never been equaled before or since. I saw a man transformed from a human being into something pretty close to a god. If somebody had predicted that back on the Boston Red Sox in 1914, he would have been thrown in an insane asylum."

Coming up: The greatest center fielder in Red Sox history.

The Top 100 Red Sox: No. 10

Your faithful scribe will be at Fenway Park bright and early Monday morning for Opening Day. But while the Braves and Phillies are opening the season in Philadelphia, why not check back in with the Top 100 list?

Here's where we last left things:

20. Dwight Evans, RF
19. Bobby Doerr, 2B
18. Mel Parnell, P
17. Luis Tiant, P
16. Joe Cronin, SS
15. Jim Rice, LF
14. Carlton Fisk, C
13. Wade Boggs, 3B
12. David Ortiz, DH
11. Carl Yastrzemski, LF

If Yaz doesn't make the final 10, you might ask, who does? Let's find out:

10. Smoky Joe Wood
If there was a Cy Young Award in 1912, it probably would have gone to Walter Johnson. "The Big Train" won 33 games, second in the American League, but he led all pitchers in ERA (1.39), strikeouts (303), WHIP (o.908) and adjusted ERA+ (242).

Joe Wood would have finished second in the voting thanks to his 34 wins and his second-place finish in each of those categories: A 1.91 ERA, 258 strikeouts, a 1.014 WHIP and an adjusted ERA+ of 172.

But when the two met in September in perhaps the most anticipated game of the pre-World War II era, it was Wood who came out on top. Clark Griffith, the Washington Senators' owner, even called Wood out in the papers: "We will consider him a coward if he doesn't pitch against Johnson." So many fans wanted to watch the two aces pitch against each other that they were permitted to line up along the Fenway Park infield, pressed up almost against the foul lines.

"I never saw so many people in one place in my life," Wood said later.

The two pitchers matched zeroes through five innings before the Red Sox broke through in the sixth; Tris Speaker doubled into the crowd with two outs, and Duffy Lewis followed with a pop fly to right field to score Speaker with the game's first run.

As it turned out, it would be the game's only run. Wood allowed the Senators to load the bases in the third inning but got out of the jam with a strikeout; he ran into trouble in the sixth, eighth and ninth, too, but emerged unscathed. He needed 119 pitches -- including 20 in a ninth inning in which he allowed a runner to reach second base with just one out -- but didn't relinquish the lead Lewis and Speaker had given him.

Wood's sensational 1912 season should have been just the first in a long line of sensational seasons. But he sprained his ankle in March of 1913 and hurt his shoulder trying to compensate for his sore ankle; he followed that up by breaking his thumb in a rundown in July. the maladies limited him to just 18 starts in 1913 and 14 starts in 1914.

He launched a comeback in 1915, going 15-5 with a 1.49 ERA -- he even outdueled Chicago ace Red Faber in a key mid-July series on the road. But he was all but done at that point; he balked at a salary before the 1916 season and ended up skipping the entire season. He never won another game in the major leagues.

Coming up: A man who hit 49 home runs in a Red Sox uniform.

The Top 100 Red Sox: 11-12

Retracing our steps like Hansel and Gretel:

22. Mo Vaughn, 1B
21. Nomar Garciaparra, SS
20. Dwight Evans, RF
19. Bobby Doerr, 2B
18. Mel Parnell, P
17. Luis Tiant, P
16. Joe Cronin, SS
15. Jim Rice, LF
14. Carlton Fisk, C
13. Wade Boggs, 3B

12. David Ortiz
We covered this a little bit in the Trot Nixon capsule, but isn't it incredible just how many franchise-changing home runs David Ortiz has hit in his career? The man has 12 career home runs in 63 postseason games -- including seven in 33 ALCS games -- and it seems like each one has done a little bit to change the trajectory of the Red Sox franchise.

And just because it's fun to do a countdown within a countdown, let's look back at the Most Memorable Home Runs in the Career of David Ortiz:

Honorable mention: Game 5, 2008 ALCS, 7th inning
He was 5-for-31 (.161) in the playoffs entering the game and 0-for-3 in the game when he came up with two runners on and the Red Sox trailing by a 7-1 score to the Rays. But with Coco Crisp on third and Dustin Pedroia on first, Ortiz tucked a home run just inside the right-field foul pole to pull the Red Sox within three runs and to make the incredible comeback, for the first time, seem realistic.

The Red Sox didn't go on to win the World Series. They didn't even go on to make it to the World Series. But that home run did two things:
* It pushed the ALCS to a sixth and, later, seventh game, and the Red Sox thus have been able to tell themselves all offseason they were a game away from the World Series; and
* It restored the luster that had been fading from Big Papi -- and provided a big shot in the arm for a guy who needed a big shot in the arm going into this offseason.

5. April 11, 2004, 12th inning
Sure, it was just early April. But the Red Sox had lost to the Yankees in such heartbreaking fashion the previous year that it felt like they'd missed their shot. With so many key players (including Pedro Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Varitek) set to become free agents at the end of the year, the year already had something of a do-or-die feel to it.

A spark had to come from somewhere, and Ortiz -- a Minnesota castaway who had hit 31 home runs in 448 at-bats the year before -- was just the guy to provide it.

The Red Sox already had rallied with a run in the eighth and a run in the ninth to tie the game at 4 and send it to extra innings; second baseman Mark Bellhorn was right in the center of things, scoring one run and driving in another to keep the Red Sox in it. Ortiz, actually, had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth but flew out to center field with Bellhorn in scoring position.

He didn't let that happen again. Bill Mueller drew a walk to lead off the bottom of the 12th, and Ortiz followed with a two-run home run over the Green Monster -- just his second walk-off home run as a member of the Red Sox.

4. Game 1, 2003 ALCS, 4th inning
It's hard to remember now, but the 2003 American League Championship Series had the pall of 1999 hanging all over it. In 1999, after all, the Red Sox had pulled out a dramatic five-game victory in the American League Division Series only to be rudely dismissed by the Yankees a round later. And in 2003, as the Red Sox again needed more than their share of dramatics to get to the ALCS, the Yankees again were waiting. Mike Mussina, who had gone 17-8 with a 3.40 ERA that season, was well-rested and scheduled to pitch against Tim Wakefield, who was pretty much the only option the Red Sox had.

But with Manny Ramirez on first base and no one out in the top of the fourth, Ortiz worked the count full and hit his first career postseason home run. That was the first time either team had scored in the game -- and that was the first time even the most cynical Red Sox fans began to think, "We can win this thing."

That feeling would last until the eighth inning of Game 7 -- and it would be what sparked everything the Red Sox did that offseason to prepare for 2004.

3. Game 3, 2004 ALDS, 9th inning
The prelude to the magic. The Red Sox already were virtually assured of a berth in the American League Championship Series; they'd knocked around Angels pitching for two days, and only a seventh-inning grand slam by Vladmir Guerrero had stalled the celebration.

But, still, the Red Sox had to close it out -- they knew as well as anyone else what could happen if you gave a quality team a second lift in a short playoff series. With two outs, Ortiz came to the plate to face lefty Jarrod Washburn, a starter brought on to replace the tiring Francisco Rodriguez.

Ortiz hit the first pitch Washburn threw over the Green Monster to end the series and send the Red Sox to New York to face the Yankees.

2. Game 5, 2004 ALCS, 8th inning
The Yankees led by a 4-2 score going into the top of the eighth inning; Mariano Rivera was warming in the bullpen. The Red Sox needed another miracle.

Ortiz couldn't hit a two-run home run; he was leading off the inning. But it didn't take long -- two pitches, in fact -- until he hit another big home run, his second in two nights, to pull the Red Sox within a run. From there, it was only a matter of time before the Red Sox scratched out another run on a walk, a single and a Jason Varitek sacrifice fly.

Ortiz then, of course, singled home Johnny Damon with the winning run in the 14th inning to send the series back to Yankee Stadium.

1. Game 4, 2004 ALCS, 12th inning
Without Game 4, there's no Game 5. Without Game 5, there's no Bloody Sock in Game 6. There's no pennant. There's no Bellhorn-off-the-foul-pole. There's no Renteria-grounds-to-Foulke. There's no Doug Mientkiewicz. There's no World Series title.

More than any other hit by any other player, ever, the two-run home run that Ortiz stroked into the right-field bleachers off old friend Paul Quantrill turned the Red Sox from perennial runners-up into the envy of an entire industry.

11. Carl Yastrzemski
For most of his career, Yaz was a very good player. He made the American League All-Star team every year; he earned enough MVP votes to land him in the top 20; he hit almost 20 home runs and drove in almost 100 runs. For every .329-40-102 season (1969), though, he'd give you a .254-15-70 season (1971). In fact, he didn't hit more than 20 home runs until he was 27 years old; he didn't drive in 100 runs or slug .500 in back-to-back years until he was 29 and 30.

But there's a reason, apart from his career numbers, Yaz is and always will be a legend in Boston. That reason is 1967.

The Red Sox had lost 90 games and finished ninth in the American League in 1966, 26 games behind the eventual World Series champion Baltimore Orioles. Yaz, at 26 heading into the prime of his career, had hit .278 with 16 home runs and 80 RBI; Tony Conigliaro, George Scott and Rico Petrocelli all hit more home runs than their young captain. Hopes were not high for 1967.

Hopes didn't get any higher when the Red Sox started the season 11-14 and were stuck in eighth place in mid-May. Rookie Billy Rohr threw a one-hit shutout at Yankee Stadium, but that was about all the Red Sox had going for them. It was looking like another long summer at Fenway Park.

That's when new manager Dick Williams did something interesting: He benched Yastrzemski. The left fielder had played in 160 games the year before; he wasn't accustomed to taking a seat. But after a hot start that included five hits in a game at Yankee Stadium, Yaz hit just .218 from April 18-May 6 and Williams asked him to take a seat. George Thomas started the game in left field; Jose Tartabull took over in the fourth inning. Yastrzemski didn't get into the game until the bottom of the ninth as a defensive replacement and didn't get an at-bat in the game.

But in the next two weeks after that day, Yastrzemski hit .353 with six home runs and 18 RBI, and the Red Sox began to show some life. In June, after Chicago manager called Yaz "an All-Star from the neck down," Yaz went 7-for-13 with a double and a home run in a three-game series against the White Sox. The next day, back at Fenway Park, he hit a pair of home runs as the Red Sox pulled within 4 1/2 games of first place.

But the Red Sox couldn't do much more than tread water in the standings for another month or so. At the end of the day on Aug. 18, they were still in fourth place -- and suddenly without Tony Conigliaro, hit by the pitch that would destroy his career.

The next day, though, Yaz put his team on his shoulders and never put it back down. He hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning and doubled and scored in the eighth as the Red Sox beat the Angels; in the 12 games after Conigliaro was beaned, Yaz hit .390 (and OBP'ed .519 thanks to 10 walks) with two doubles, a triple and six home runs.

While he hit a lull in mid-August, he came out of it with a bang -- he'd gone 0-for-12 in three games at Yankee Stadium, but when Williams kept him out of the starting lineup for the fourth game, he came into the game as part of a double switch and hit a go-ahead solo home run in the top of the 11th to win the game.

After that, it seemed like no one could get Yastrzemski out. He hit another home run against the Yankees on Sept. 9; he went 3-for-4 against the Orioles on Sept. 15. And in the final two weeks of the season, as the Red Sox fought off Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota to win the pennant, he hit .523 with five home runs and 16 RBI. He hit a game-tying home run against Detroit on Sept. 18; he scored the game-winning run against Cleveland two days later.

And in the season-ending two-game series with Minnesota, he had seven hits and six RBI. His three-run home run in the seventh inning iced the first game of the series; in the second game, his two-run single sparked a five-run inning that provided all the run support Jim Lonborg would need.

Yastrzemski finished his Red Sox career with dozens and dozens of highlights. What he did to carry the Red Sox to the pennant in 1967, though, will never be forgotten.

Coming up: The Top 100 takes a little bit of a break as the focus shifts to, you know, the season starting. But it'll be back with a vengeance once we're past Opening Day and all that related hoopla.

(Random question: Where the heck did the word "hoopla" come from? What kind of work is "hoopla," anyway? Does it predate March Madness? Inquiring minds want to know.)

In the meantime, though, I'll be in New York for the two exhibition games and at Fenway Park for Opening Day. Check back early and often!

The Top 100 Red Sox: 13-15

Let's look back before we keep moving:

25. Tim Wakefield, P
24. Dutch Leonard, P
23. Bob Stanley, P
22. Mo Vaughn, 1B
21. Nomar Garciaparra, SS
20. Dwight Evans, RF
19. Bobby Doerr, 2B
18. Mel Parnell, P
17. Luis Tiant, P
16. Joe Cronin, SS

15. Jim Rice
The Red Sox have had tremendous success of late in the amateur draft. Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Jed Lowrie, Daniel Bard -- all were drafted in either the first or second round, and all either are or are expected to be impact players in Boston.

As you know, though, that hasn't always been the case. (John Curtice, anyone?). But you might not know just how far back the Red Sox's draft woes stretch. It took quite a while for most teams to master the draft -- seven of the 20 first-round picks in 1965 never even played in the major leagues -- but it took even longer for the Red Sox to find an impact player in the early rounds.

In fact, Jim Rice was the first successful first-round pick the franchise ever made -- just check out what the Red Sox did with their first six first-round draft picks:

1965: Billy Conigliaro, outfielder, Swampscott High School. He was drafted, you have to imagine, in large part because of his last name and the way his brother had lit the city on fire. But Billy C hit a career-best 18 home runs in as a 22-year-old in 1970 but never latched on and was dealt to Milwaukee in 1971. He was sold to Oakland in 1973 and out of the major leagues by 1974.
Who they passed up: A pair of catchers: Ray Fosse, who was on his way to becoming one of the best in the game before Pete Rose steamrolled him in the 1970 All-Star Game, and Johnny Bench.

1966: Ken Brett, lefthanded pitcher, El Segundo (Calif.) High School. A journeyman in every sense of the word, George's older brother kicked around from the Red Sox (14 starts in 1970) to the Brewers to the Phillies to the Pirates to the Yankees to the White Sox to the Angels to the Twins to the Dodgers and finally to the Royals. His best season came in 1974, when he won 13 games to go along with a 3.30 ERA and he earned an All-Star nod. But that was three years after the Red Sox had traded him and Conigliaro to Milwaukee.
Who they passed up: Reggie Jackson had come off the board by the time the Red Sox picked, but Gary Nolan (18-7 with a 3.27 ERA for the Reds in 1970 and 15-5 with a 1.99 ERA two years later) hadn't.

1967: Mike Garman, righthanded pitcher, Caldwell (Idaho) High School. Garman pitched all of 56 1/3 innings for the Red Sox before being dealt to St. Louis, where he carved out a niche as a relief pitcher. In two seasons with the Cardinals, he compiled ERAs of 2.64 and 2.39, respectively.
Who they passed up: Two-time All-Star first baseman John Mayberry (255 career home runs), eight-time All-Star catcher Ted Simmons (248 career home runs) and six-time All-Star second baseman Bobby Grich (224 home runs) all came off the board later in the first round. And the Red Sox actually passed on Vida Blue twice; they chose the immortal Danny Graham in the second round, four spots before the Athletics snagged their future ace.

1968: Tom Maggard, catcher, John Glenn (Calif.) High School. The first Red Sox draft pick never to make it to the major leagues, Maggard actually was right on the doorstep when he died from an insect bite in 1973. He never really excelled in the minor leagues; his best season mighth ave been 1972, when he hit 14 home runs at then-Double-A Pawtucket.
Who they passed up: Thanks to their Impossible Dream season, the Red Sox had to pick at the bottom of the first round and thus missed out on Thurman Munson and Greg Luzinski. But they did miss out on a first baseman who go 25th overall and who would finish his career with 2,715 hits. That first baseman? Bill Buckner.

1969: Noel Jenke, outfielder, the University of Minnesota. A sensational athlete, Jenke played football, hockey and baseball for the Golden Gophers and was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Vikings as well. He stalled at Triple-A with the Red Sox and then decided to try his hand at football, his best sport, and played four seasons in the NFL. His best season came in 1971, when he appeared in 14 games and recovered two fumbles for the Minnesota Vikings.
Who they passed up: The very next draft pick was lefthanded pitcher Don Gullett, who had a 4.34 ERA in three starts -- including 8 2/3 innings in a win in Game 5 -- in the 1975 World Series against the Red Sox. Think maybe that one draft pick could have turned the tide of franchise history? Can you imagine a Tiant-Gullett-Lee-Wise-Cleveland rotation?

1970: Jimmy Hacker, third baseman, Temple (Texas) High School. Instead of signing, Hacker opted to go play at Texas A&M and was drafted four years later by the Braves.
Who they passed up: Slim pickings here; of the final 12 draft picks in the first round, just four ended up making the major leagues. But sliding all the way into the ninth round -- meaning everyone missed on him more than a half-dozen times was a 6-foot-3 relief pitcher out of Colorado Springs, Colo., by the name of Rich Gossage.

1971: Jim Rice, outfielder, Hanna (S.C.) High School. There we go.

(George Brett and Mike Schmidt went back-to-back in the second round -- and based on the look of that year's first round, the Red Sox are the only team that can justify their decision to pass on both of them. Four teams passed twice.)

It took a couple of years for Rice to get to the major leagues; he got his cup of coffee in 1974 and finished third in MVP voting in 1975. By 1978, he was the best player in the game.

From Bill Lee: "(Rice accused) the Boston management of not bringing him up sooner because of his color. The REd Sox were something of a racist organization, but I don't believe color had anything to do with his not being brought up sooner. I think it was a tailoring problem. When he was ready to play in the majors, the club didn't have a uniform big enough to fit him. Jim was one big, solid piece of muscle.

"Once, (Dwight) Evans and (Bernie) Carbo were going at each other in right field during batting practice. ... Rice broke it up. He did this by first separating them, picking them up off the ground and holding them aloft. One in each hand. He then politely asked them to calm down. Instant serenity."

14. Carlton Fisk
Red Sox fans take catching for granted these days. The uproar over Jason Varitek and his .220 batting average of a season ago makes that obvious. But it's hard to blame them. For Red Sox fans around 50 years old, outstanding catching is all they've ever known.

Before Varitek was Rich Gedman, who sat behind the plate for 857 games from 1980-90, backstopping the Red Sox to a World Series and three playoff berths. And before Gedman was Fisk, the greatest catcher in the history of the franchise. We barely even need to go into Fisk's Hall of Fame credentials -- no player has caught more games in the major leagues, and only Mike Piazza has hit more home runs as a catcher. The home run he hit in Game 6 in 1975 remains perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.

But the way Fisk anchored that position for the Red Sox in the 1970s was far more extraordinary than the success of Gedman and Varitek makes it seem. The New Hampshire native hit .300 twice and hit 20 home runs four times; he went to the All-Star Game an incredible seven times. He was something the Red Sox had never seen before.

Don't think so? Here's a sampling of the Red Sox catchers that preceded Fisk:
* Duane Josephson (1971-72): Hit 10 home runs and 14 doubles in his only full season.
* Jerry Moses (1965-70): Had 300 at-bats just once -- in 1970, when he hit .263 with 35 RBI.
* Russ Gibson (1967-69): Hit above .225 just once in his three seasons in Boston.
* Mike Ryan (1965-67): Hit above .200 just once in his three seasons in Boston.
* Bob Tillman (1962-67): Hit 17 home runs in 1964, by far his best season.
* Jim Pagliaroni (1960-62): Hit 16 home runs in 1961, his only full season.
* Russ Nixon (1960-65): Consistently hit around .280 but never more than five home runs.

Before that, Sammy White laid claim to the position for eight years; he hit at least 10 home runs four times and made the All-Star team in 1953. Birdie Tebbetts backstopped the Red Sox through their near-miss years of 1948 and 1949. Rick Ferrell caught for the Tom Yawkey-bought Red Sox from 1933-37 and later was inexplicably elected to the Hall of Fame. And Bill Carrigan caught off and on from 1906-16, but his primary duty was being the best manager the Red Sox had in the 20th century.

But that's it. That's what the catching position looked like in Red Sox history. It wasn't Fisk, Gedman and Varitek; it was Bennie Tate, Charlie Berry, Fred Hofmann and Val Picinich.

That's what made Fisk so remarkable. It wasn't that he played catcher for the Red Sox for a long time. It's that he was great.

13. Wade Boggs
You want to talk about a guy who was ahead of his time?

Wade Boggs was ahead of his time.

On-base percentage is growing rapidly in terms of acceptance and understanding in the baseball world; it's still misinterpreted once in a while as an overemphasis on walks, but it's getting there. Still, though, the idea of on-base percentage comes up all the time in Hall of Fame discussions -- and it's still often dismissed as being a new stat that you can't apply to past generations. When critics bring up Andre Dawson's career on-base percentage of .323, for example, other

"Failing to vote for Dawson for the Hall of Fame because of his low career on-base percentage is like criticizing an old comedian for being politically incorrect," FOX's Ken Rosenthal wrote just this year.

"To me, it's a ridiculous statistic," Dawson himself said. "It's no indication of the big picture."

Actually, it's a complete indication of the big picture.

To quote Dawson nay-sayer Joe Posnanski, "On-base percentage is simply the core of baseball, the very heart of it since the first ball hit the first stick. It is about how many times a batter gets on -- and, conversely, how many times he makes outs. It is what the game is all about."

And that's what makes the career of Wade Boggs -- not a power hitter, and not a Brooks Robinson-type defensive player, either -- so remarkable. Boggs' career defines what on-base percentage is all about.

Boggs won five batting titles between 1983-88. He hit over .300 13 straight times. In doing so, he collected 200 hits seven straight times. Only Ted Williams has a higher career batting average than Boggs.

But Boggs managed to walk, too. He wasn't "feared" like teammate Jim Rice, but he still managed to walk. And in a game in which power hitters walk and singles hitters are allowed to hit singles, well, that's really, really impressive. And in Red Sox history, here's the all-time on-base percentage leaderboard:

1. Ted Williams, .482
2. Jimmie Foxx, .429
3. Wade Boggs, .428
4. Tris Speaker, .414
5. Manny Ramirez, .411

Four of those five are power hitters. (Speaker played in the Dead Ball Era, but he's as much a power hitter as any of the other three.) The fifth is Boggs, who hit more than eight home runs in a season just twice in his 18-year career.

Let's look at it another way. Five players in baseball history have had at least 200 hits and 100 walks in the same season at least twice in their careers. Those players -- and their home run totals in each of those seasons:
* Lou Gehrig: 34, 37, 41, 46, 47, 49, 49
* Babe Ruth: 41, 46, 59
* Stan Musial: 30, 36
* Todd Helton: 33, 42

And then there's Boggs: 3, 5, 8, 24.

First of all: It's remarkable that not even Ruth went 200-100 as many times as Boggs did. Second of all: How does a guy who hits just three home runs in a season, the way Boggs did in 1989, walk 100 times? That's amazing.

That's what on-base percentage is: Finding a way to get on base as often as you can. Boggs got on base at least 300 times six times in his career; only Gehrig, Musial, Ruth, Barry Bonds and Ted Williams can say the same thing.

All six of those players hit at least 450 career home runs. Boggs hit 118.

Incredible.

Coming up: You might be surprised who falls outside the top 10.

The Top 100 Red Sox: 16-18

28. Harry Hooper, RF
27. Fred Lynn, CF
26. Dick Radatz, P
25. Tim Wakefield, P
24. Dutch Leonard, P
23. Bob Stanley, P
22. Mo Vaughn, 1B
21. Nomar Garciaparra, SS
20. Dwight Evans, RF
19. Bobby Doerr, 2B

Isn't baseball great?

18. Mel Parnell
Remember the story of Ellis Kinder and Denny Galehouse and Joe McCarthy and the final game of the 1948 season? Let's keep going with that.

A year after the Red Sox lost in a playoff to the Cleveland Indians to miss out on their second World Series berth in three years, they were right in the thick of things again in 1949. A big reason for that was the pitching of Kinder and Mel Parnell, who combined to throw 46 complete games for the Red Sox. Pitchers like Boo Ferriss and Tex Hughson got hurt; others, ineffective early in the season, were buried in McCarthy's doghouse. Kinder, Parnell and Joe Dobson were the only pitchers to take anything resembling a regular turn in the rotation throughout the season.

McCarthy had heard all year about how he'd chosen the wrong pitcher in 1948 by skipping over Parnell and Kinder for the playoff game. Almost out of spite, it seems, McCarthy had the two make a combined 63 starts and 19 relief appearances -- including almost every meaningful inning down the stretch. By the time the Red Sox had pulled from 12 games back on July 4 to 1 1/2 games back on Aug. 26, one or the other was pitching almost every day. (It was like Arizona in the 2001 World Series, only for an entire season.)

As they should have been, one could argue. After all, they were the best the Red Sox had. Parnell, in fact, would finish his career ranked second all-time in wins by a Red Sox pitcher. (He since has been passed by Roger Clemens and Tim Wakefield.) And when Kinder tossed a shutout on Sept. 24 and Parnell tossed a four-hitter on Sept. 25, the Red Sox claimed a share of first place for the first time all season.

But that's when it began to catch up with them.

Jack Kramer won at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 26 as the Red Sox took a one-game lead in the American League standings; Joe Dobson won a day later at Washington to keep that lead at one game.

A day later, the Red Sox got an outstanding start from Chuck Stobbs -- eight innings of shutout baseball. But when Stobbs ran into trouble, giving up three hits and a run in the bottom of the ninth, McCarthy went right back to his aces. Kinder surrendered a hit to load the bases; McCarthy promptly yanked him and gave the ball to Parnell -- who had pitched three days earlier and who would pitch again three days after that. Parnell uncorked a wild pitch that allowed the winning run to score and the team's one-game lead in the standings to evaporate.

Two days later, the Red Sox once again were leading by a game with two left to play -- both at Yankee Stadium. Parnell got the ball for the first game; Kinder was scheduled to start the second.

The Red Sox gave Parnell a quick 4-0 lead thanks to a pair of bases-loaded walks in the third inning. That ought to have been plenty. But that, it appears, is when the workload began to catch up to the Red Sox's lefthanded ace. Joe DiMaggio, who could barely stand up during a pregame ceremony to honor him, led off the fourth with a double and came around to score; Yogi Berra singled to center in the fifth to cut the deficit to 4-3.

Parnell was finished. Joe Dobson was waved in, but he, too, had little left in the tank -- he'd thrown 212 2/3 innings despite early-season arm injuries. When Johnny Lindell hit a home run to left field in the eighth inning, it handed the Yankees a 5-4 win.

The next day, Kinder got the start and pitched well; other than a Phil Rizzuto triple that led to a run, he allowed almost nothing through seven innings. Going into the eighth, the Red Sox trailed by a 1-0 score. When McCarthy had to pinch-hit for his pitcher, though, he gave the ball to Parnell for the fourth time in six games. He'd given himself no other choice. The only pitchers in whom he had any faith were his two aces, and his two aces had nothing left.

Parnell surrendered a leadoff home run to Tommy Henrich to make the score 2-0. By the time the inning ended -- even McCarthy had to realize Parnell was finished at that point and went to Tex Hughson -- the Red Sox trailed by a 5-0 score.

Those insurance runs proved critical when the Red Sox scored three times in the top of the ninth inning. But instead of winning in come-from-behind fashion, the Red Sox came up short yet again. Parnell had turned in two of the most brilliant seasons in franchise history in 1948 and 1949 -- and his team had nothing to show for it.

17. Luis Tiant
The funny thing about El Tiante's 1975 season -- he won 18 games to go along with a 4.13 ERA and struck out 142 -- is that it wasn't his best season in a Red Sox uniform. It wasn't his second-best, either -- or his third-best. It probably wasn't his fourth-best, either.

That's what lands the Cuban with the spinning-top pitching motion so high on this list. He's best known for his part in the run to the pennant in 1975, but he wasn't a bolt of lightning like Jim Lonborg in 1967. Instead, after working his way back from injury, he blossomed into the best Red Sox pitcher of the decade.

Tiant already had won 21 games in 1968 with the Indians, but a sore shoulder in 1969 and a fracture in his shoulder blade in 1970 threw his career into a tailspin. He lost 20 games in 1969 and was traded to Minnesota, released by Minnesota and released by Atlanta before the Red Sox signed him to a deal. He was 30 years old and on the same career track as a guy named Al Mamaux.

After extensive work on his leg strength to ease the burden on his arms, though, Tiant began to re-emerge as a star. He began the 1972 season pitching mostly out of the bullpen, but a string of four straight shutouts from Aug. 19 to Sept. 6 landed him in the starting rotation for good. From Aug. 19 on, in fact, he went 9-2 with a 0.96 ERA as the Red Sox climbed into first place and stayed there for much of September. By the end of the year, he'd done enough to earn himself a first-place vote in the Cy Young race and even a little MVP consideration.

A year later, he went 20-13 with a 3.34 ERA. A year after that, in 1974, he went 22-13 with a 2.92 ERA in a remarkable 311 1/3 innings pitched. (No other Red Sox pitcher has thrown 300 innings in a season since World War II.)

In one June game, in fact, he went the distance in a 15-inning loss to the Angels, surrendering just three runs through 14 innings before Denny Doyle doubled home Mickey Rivers in the bottom of the 15th. Five days later, he went the distance in a 10-inning win over the A's, surrendering only an eighth-inning home run in a 2-1 win.

With so much firepower coming up through the system, the Red Sox needed themselves a horse. They couldn't have found one who was much better -- and that's why, in 1975, it all came together.

16. Joe Cronin
Yeah, we all know sportswriters sometimes try to be funny and aren't funny. But it's hard to beat this line, written after Washington Senators sold Joe Cronin, his starting shortstop and son-in-law, to the Red Sox for a quarter of a million dollars in 1934:

"I wish I could sell my son-in-law for $250,000. Any bidders?"

Cronin was coming off five straight seasons in which he'd driven in 100 runs, but his batting average had dwindled from .346 in 1930 to .284 in 1934 and his run-scoring totals dwindle from 127 in 1930 to 68 in 1934.

But Cronin wasn't brought on board just to play shortstop and hit. The 28-year-old was brought on board to manage a Red Sox team that had finished eighth in every year but one between 1922 and 1930 and then lost 43 games in 1932. But they'd finished fourth in 1934 behind a big season from Wes Ferrell and, with Tom Yawkey throwing his fortune into the team, they looked poised for a leap forward.

The cornerstone to that leap was Cronin. He had some issues in the field (37 errors in 1935, which isn't actually bad compared to the 62 errors he committed in 1929) but saw his batting average begin to climb again -- from .295 in 1935 to .325 in 1938, a season in which he hit 17 home runs and a career-best 51 doubles.

Not coincidentally, 1938 was the season in which the Red Sox finally began to break through. With Jimmie Foxx and Bobby Doerr anchoring the right side of the infield, the Red Sox won 88 games and finished second behind the Yankees. A year later, with a young left fielder named Ted Williams breaking through, the Red Sox won 89 games and again finished second behind the Yankees. Cronin, even, hit .308 with 110 RBI.

But while he ranks among the top 20 in Red Sox history in numerous hitting categories. For one thing, he lasted 13 years; no other manager in history has lasted more than eight years with the Red Sox. For another thing, his career winning percentage of .539 is better than any other Red Sox manager (minimum three years) except Jimmy Collins, Terry Francona, Darrell Johnson, Joe McCarthy and Don Zimmer.

And he took the Red Sox to the World Series -- a feat that had to seem, by 1946, borderline impossible.

Coming up: The Red Sox's first great first-round draft pick.

The Top 100 Red Sox: 19-21

Isn't there some insurance broker that calls itself "The Company You Keep"? Anyway, here's the company our next three all-time greatest Red Sox are keeping:

31. Johnny Pesky, SS
30. Bill Lee, P
29. Dom DiMaggio, CF
28. Harry Hooper, RF
27. Fred Lynn, CF
26. Dick Radatz, P
25. Tim Wakefield, P
24. Dutch Leonard, P
23. Bob Stanley, P
22. Mo Vaughn, 1B

You have spoken -- and for the first time, your votes are determining the order. (All, you know, eight or nine of you who voted on the first "Who's higher on the list?" poll.) Here's what you decided:

21. Nomar Garciaparra
It's incredible, now, to look back on the Nomar we knew in 2000, before that fateful Al Reyes pitch, and the track he was on. His career numbers at age 26 -- an age when he should have been just entering the prime of his career:
* .333 batting, .382 on-base, .573 slugging
* 117 home runs
* 436 RBI
* 140 OPS+

Check out his career comparables list from baseball-reference.com:
* Mike Piazza (151 OPS+), who had played one fewer season and thus had fewer home runs (92) and RBI but a slugging percentage of .557;
* Ernie Banks (131 OPS+), who had more home runs (136) but fewer RBI and a batting average almost 50 points lower;
* Chipper Jones (129 OPS+), who had almost as many home runs (108) and RBI and the exact same on-base percentage but a lower slugging percentage;
* Yogi Berra (125 OPS+), who had fewer home runs (102) and more RBI but, again, lower percentage numbers across the board;
* And, of course, Derek Jeter (122 OPS+), who had a better on-base percentage but a far lower slugging percentage thanks to his 39 fewer home runs in 700 more at-bats.

All five are or soon will be in the Hall of Fame.

That's what Nomar was. He wasn't quite A-Rod (144 OPS+ at age 26), but he was awfully close. He was one of the best hitters in the game. He was a Rookie of the Year, an MVP runner-up, a two-time batting champ. He was a future Hall of Famer, certainly. He was Nomah!

And check out his career comparables list now, as a 34-year-old trying to resurrect his career with the Oakland Athletics:
* Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett and Mickey Cochrane, three Hall of Fame catchers;
* Jeff Kent, a future Hall of Fame second baseman thanks in part to the fact that he hit at least 20 homers four more times after he turned 34;
* Bret Boone;
* Fred Lynn;
* Javy Lopez.

He hit seven home runs in 431 at-bats at first base two years ago; an assortment of injuries landed him on the disabled list three times last season as he hit .264 and slugged .466 in 163 at-bats with the Dodgers. He's got a shot to get at-bats as a first baseman and third baseman with the A's this season.

That's it. That's Nomar -- once Chipper Jones; now Bret Boone. He's the one guy on this list who should have been so much higher than he is.

20. Dwight Evans
Only Carl Yastrzemski played in more games and had more at-bats in a Red Sox uniform than Evans -- the perennial Gold Glove winner played with Yaz and Luis Tiant, with Carlton Fisk and Jim Rice, with Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens.

He played for four division winners and went to the World Series twice, a feat bested only by fellow right fielder Harry Hooper between 1912 and 1918. When it comes to memorable moments in Red Sox history, in fact, Evans is a little bit like Forrest Gump -- always there, and not necessarily just in the background:

1975: Made some kind of catch, or something.
(As an aside: I was eight or nine years old when I met Joe Morgan at an autograph show; the event was fairly sparsely attended, which gave my family and I a chance to chat with him a little bit. I'd shown up wearing all my Red Sox gear, which meant the conversation naturally turned to Game 6. "You know, if it wasn't for Dwight Evans," he said with a gracious smile, "it would be me everyone remembers from that game and not Carlton Fisk." I wish I could like Joe Morgan more as a broadcaster. I really do.)

1978: The Red Sox were cruising toward a division title when Evans was hit in the head with a pitch on Aug. 28 against Seattle. The dizziness cost him a shot at 30 home runs and probably cost the Red Sox the division; it was just two days later that the Red Sox kicked off a stretch in which they'd lose 14 of 17 to go from 7 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees to 3 1/2 games behind. He hit .164 in the month of September -- and probably shouldn't have even been playing in his condition -- and couldn't do anything more than pinch-hit in the ninth inning of the one-game playoff on Oct. 2.

1986: Hit a three-run home run to provide Roger Clemens with all the run support he'd get -- and need -- in the 20-strikeout game on April 29.

Oh, and he hit .308 with two doubles and two home runs in the World Series -- including an RBI double in the first inning of Game 6 and a solo home run in the second inning of Game 7 -- and was out in right field when that ground ball rolled through the legs of Bill Buckner.

1988: Drove in 111 runs and finished ninth in MVP voting -- his fourth top-10 finish of his career -- as the Red Sox won their second division title in three years.

1990: On his way out as a full-time player, still hit 13 home runs and 18 doubles as the Red Sox won their third division title in five years.

19. Bobby Doerr
Eighteen players have hit for the cycle in Red Sox history. Luminaries such as Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and Tris Speaker all have done it; also-rans like Scott Cooper and Leon Culberson have done it, too. But no one has done it twice -- except for Bobby Doerr.

But that shouldn't be surprising: Doerr ranks among the Red Sox career leaders in singles (6th), doubles (5th), triples (4th) and home runs (8th). He's one of only four players to rank among the top 10 in franchise history in all four categories; Ted Williams, Jim Rice and Dwight Evans are the others. (Rice never hit for the cycle. Go figure.)

But Doerr wasn't just a hitting-for-the-cycle machine. The second baseman made nine All-Star teams in his 14 seasons in Boston; he hit 20 home runs three times and drove in 100 runs six times. And in the 1946 World Series, while an injured Ted Williams was hitting .200, Doerr hit a team-best .409 with a double and a home run.

(Here's one more interesting stat for you: Between 1979 and 1996, the Red Sox hit for the cycle seven times. Since 1996, the Red Sox have hit for the cycle zero times.)

The Top 100 Red Sox: 22-24

We're in elite company now:

34. Jason Varitek
33. Jackie Jensen
32. Rico Petrocelli
31. Johnny Pesky
30. Bill Lee
29. Dom DiMaggio
28. Harry Hooper
27. Fred Lynn
26. Dick Radatz
25. Tim Wakefield

Onward and upward:

24. Dutch Leonard
Red Sox fans should have had a gripe when the NCAA Tournament selection committee left St. Mary's College of California out of the field; there aren't many schools who have groomed for the Red Sox the type of players St. Mary's did in the early part of the century. Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper came out of St. Mary's in 1904 and 1907, respectively -- and Dutch Leonard came right out of St. Mary's in 1912 (after striking out 23 in one college game) and was in Boston just a year later.

And a year after that, he pitched perhaps the greatest single season in Red Sox history. (OK, considering the time period, it might be the second-greatest. We'll get to the greatest in about a week or so.)

In 1914, Leonard allowed 24 earned runs in 224 2/3 innings -- an ERA of 0.96, still a Red Sox record. His ERA+ was 279, an astounding mark that wouldn't be bested by a Red Sox pitcher for almost nine decades. He lost twice in April by identical 1-0 scores, but he ended up winning 19 games to go along with his sensational ERA.

A year later, his ERA skyrocketed all the way up to 2.36 -- fourth-best on what was probably the greatest pitching staff in Red Sox history. And in Game 3 of the World Series that year, he tossed a complete-game three-hitter, earning a 2-1 win when Lewis singled home Hooper with the winning run -- probably as proud a moment for St. Mary's as any college baseball team could ever have.

23. Bob Stanley
Before there was Derek Lowe, there was Bob Stanley -- wild pitch or no wild pitch, the greatest two-way pitcher the Red Sox have ever had. Stanley started at least 10 games four times and saved at least 10 games seven times; he ranks eighth in franchise history in wins (115, just two behind Joe Wood and Pedro Martinez) and first in saves (132, though Jonathan Papelbon is likely to pass him this season).

And while his legacy is the pitch that got away in Game 6 in 1986, his best season came in the other most heartbreaking season in Red Sox history -- 1978.

Stanley was just 23 years old then, coming off a 1977 season in which he'd tossed three complete games and earned three saves -- a perfect debut for a player who would do plenty of both in his career. Unlike the rest of his team, Stanley got off to a rough start in 1978 -- he blew a save in the 11th inning of an April game against Cleveland by surrendering three runs, all with two outs. (The go-ahead run was scored by none other than Duane Kuiper, the boyhood hero of the best sportswriter in America.)

But from that point on, Stanley was close to untouchable. He went 14-1 with a 2.49 ERA doing just about anything the Red Sox asked of him. In a late May game against Toronto, Bill Lee was knocked out after two-thirds of an inning -- and while Stanley allowed a run-scoring single to the first batter he faced, he then pitched 8 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

And as the Red Sox started to fall apart down the stretch, Stanley only got better. He threw 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief against Cleveland on Aug. 8; he earn a win in five straight appearances over a two-week span. He then threw 6 2/3 innings of relief against Oakland on Sept. 3 as the Red Sox turned an early 5-5 tie into an 11-6 win.

From Sept. 1-16, while the rest of the pitching staff was going 1-13 with a 4.54 ERA, Stanley went 2-0 with a 3.09 ERA. His worst outing might have been his Sept. 10 relief stint against the Yankees in which he surrendered three runs in three innings -- but given the way the Yankees had pounded Red Sox pitching to that point (35 runs in three games), three runs in three innings doesn't look all that bad.

And in a Sept. 29 game the Red Sox needed desperately to keep pace with the Yankees, Stanley drew the start -- and threw seven shutout innings to earn his 15th win of the season. Just two days earlier, he'd thrown two-thirds of an inning to earn his 10th save.

Just one other pitcher since World War II has done what Stanley did in 1978 by earning 15 wins, 10 saves and making at least a couple of starts: Joe Black of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. Black pitched in the World Series in 1952. Stanley did almost everything he could to get the Red Sox to the World Series in 1978.

22. Mo Vaughn
Of all the acrimonious departures from Boston in the last couple of decades -- Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs -- none seemed as much a shame of that of the "Hit Dog."

Vaughn grew up in Connecticut and spent every Thanksgiving in Roxbury, Mass.; he was a local guy. He also was a black guy, a big thing for a franchise that has had more issues with race than any other. Even while Vaughn was on his way up through the system, the soft-spoken Ellis Burks was on his way out -- which was almost a relief, given how much he'd felt like an outsider in his years in the Red Sox clubhouse.

But Vaughn seemed to be different. He received a huge standing ovation when his name was announced before his first game; he did what he could to get involved with the community and with charities, to teach young black kids the basics of growing up like writing a check and signing a lease on an apartment.

"He had a history," Sports Illustrated's Leigh Montville wrote. "That was the thing. He was all Boston. He was a civic monument set somewhere on the Freedom Trail, among the Old North Church and the swan boats and a good pot of baked beans. You hear stories all the time about black athletes who cross Boston off their list of places to play, citing its reputation for troubled race relations. Vaughn loved the city. He had been going there all his life."

It helped that he could flat-out smoke the ball -- he hit .297 with 29 home runs and 101 RBI in 1993, and his slugging percentage never again would dip below .500 while he wore a Red Sox uniform.

In 1995, he hit. .300 with 39 home runs and 126 RBI and won the American League's MVP award. In 1996, he one-upped himself in every category -- he hit .326 with 44 home runs and 143 RBI, and he even walked a career-best 95 times. (Thanks in large part to his team's third-place finish, he received no first-place votes in MVP voting.)

But while Burks and Jim Rice tended to be quiet and distant as a way of dealing with being one of the only black faces in the locker room, Vaughn went with the Oil Can Boyd approach -- he made sure his voice was heard. He criticized management for not signing Roger Clemens, for firing Kevin Kennedy, for suggesting he go get an evaluation after a couple of off-field incidents related to late-night activities.

After the 1998 season, he was gone -- and along with him the .936 OPs that ranks him fifth in team history, behind only Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.

"There is a miserableness that surrounds the Red Sox and their fans, all of those years without a World Series, all of the pressure," said Angels shortstop Gary DiSarcina, a New England native, in 1999. "Mo was caught in the middle of it."

Coming up: Your votes start determining the order.

A quick intermission in the Top 100

Here's a quick break in the action so those of you who haven't been following the Top 100 Red Sox of All-Time can catch up. (Click here for the original post.)

The countdown starts at No. 100 (Keith Foulke) and has continued past No. 90 (Doc Cramer), No. 80 (Boo Ferris), No. 70 (Tom Brewer, three spots ahead of Jimmy Piersall), No. 60 (Frank Sullivan, sandwiched between Jonathan Papelbon and Jim Lonborg), No. 50 (Larry Gardner, who beat out Josh Beckett by one spot), No. 40 (Buck Freeman, who edged Frank Malzone) and No. 30 (Bill Lee).

Clearly, there's nothing scientific about this list. The capsules also aren't meant to be justifications for each player's spot on the list -- we all know Dom DiMaggio and Harry Hooper both were great players, and there's no point in going through each of their numbers to figure out precisely who should be No. 29 and who should be No. 28.

Instead, it's just something to have a little fun with. I have. I hope you do, too.