The Boston Red Sox were pegged at 100-to-1 odds to capture the American League pennant in 1967.

In short, they were long shots.

Nothing surprising there. The Sox were coming off eight straight losing seasons and hadn't won a pennant in 21 years.

But those odds shrank fast in '67. The Sox had young talent, a new manager in Dick Williams, a pitcher named Jim Lonborg who would win the Cy Young Award — and a left fielder who would produce one of the great seasons in history.

His name: Carl Yastrzemski.

Yaz, as fans everywhere knew him, simply came through in true Most Valuable Player fashion. He averaged .326, drove in 121 runs and homered 44 times. Each of those numbers led the American League, giving him the Triple Crown — a feat no player has pulled off since.

"He was tearing the cover off the ball all season," Lonborg told IBD. "Yaz led by example. He would take extra batting sessions after a bad game at the plate. He did it so often, he started to wear out the pitching coach."

Yastrzemski's blast through 1967 is legendary in New England sports annals. His performance seemed to come from the ether. Yet Yaz was in his seventh season in Boston after signing as a freshman shortstop at the University of Notre Dame.

In 1963, just his third season, he led the American League in batting with a .321 average.

All the while, the youngster was stepping into the left-field cleats of Ted Williams, the Boston hero who retired in 1960. "It was a terrific burden for Yaz to try and emulate the great Ted Williams," Dick Bresciani, the Red Sox club historian, told IBD. "Yaz was a fierce competitor. He struggled a bit at the plate early on. As his frustrations grew, so did the media's scrutiny."

Yastrzemski was a chain smoker, like many ballplayers at the time. Bresciani says Yaz's habit came from nerves following Williams in Fenway Park.

Yaz said at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1989: "I remember in 1961 when I was a scared rookie hitting .220 after the first three months of my season, doubting my ability." He heard about a man fishing up in Canada. "I said, 'Can we get a hold of him?' I needed help."

That man was Ted Williams.

With the game's last .400 hitter stepping up to help his determined successor, the new left fielder came around at the plate. Yaz was an opposite-field hitter early in his career. As the lefty swinger learned to pull the ball down the right field line, his numbers rose.

Throughout his 23-year career, all with Boston, Yaz constantly worked on his swing, Lonborg says.

"He had a commitment to excellence and baseball," Lonborg said. "He tinkered with his swing all the time, changing his hands and positions to see what worked best."

Result: Yaz became one of the game's greatest hitters during a pitching-rich era. He finished with 3,419 hits, including 452 homers.

Yaz, who turns 68 this week, was about more than offense. He repeatedly practiced taking balls off Fenway's tricky left field wall, the Green Monster — which makes that area one of baseball's toughest.

Yaz mastered it. He became the best outfielder the Sox had seen since the 1910-17 seasons of Duffy Lewis, Bresciani says. Managers and coaches around the league also saw Yaz's proficiency, rewarding him with seven Gold Gloves.

Combining his glowing glove and sterling bat, Yaz was ready for a Red Sox run that would be called the Impossible Dream, as well as the Summer of Yaz.

The year before, 1966, the 26-year-old left fielder could feel a change coming for the struggling franchise. He knew young talent was rising and that all this team needed was a new manager.

After that second-to-last-place finish of '66, Yaz spent the offseason with a personal trainer to get in the best condition of his career.

And come '67, that new manager appeared in the form of Dick Wil-liams. The Sox were ready to roll.

Amid all the potential Boston had 40 years ago, Yaz was the true superstar who made everyone around him better, Bresciani says. And that wasn't the first time Yaz was a focal point of a team.

Yaz was a superstar dating back to his high school days in Southampton, N.Y.

The son of a potato farmer set records in basketball, football and baseball. He would go on to South Bend, Ind., with a full scholarship to play basketball and baseball.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, baseball stuck.

Yaz was a practical joker in the clubhouse, despite his hard-nosed play. His comical side really surfaced with the arrival of pitcher Luis Tiant and shortstop Luis Aparicio in 1971, Bresciani says.

"Yaz would pull pranks to keep the team loose," he said. "He would crawl on his belly across the room to give Tiant a hotfoot. You'd never expect that from someone who wore every defeat on his face."

A hotfoot is when a lit match is placed under the foot of an unsuspecting player. The result was pure hilarity — and boosted players who looked up to Captain Carl.

And Yaz produced plenty to look up to. Lonborg, who was Yaz's bridge partner on road trips, says the key to Boston's success in 1967 was the team captain's never-give-up attitude.

Take the last game of 1967's regular season. Boston stood tied with Minnesota atop the standings, and the Twins were in town to settle things. With 36,000 fans jamming Fenway Park, Yaz punctuated his amazing season by going four for four with two runs batted in, leading the Red Sox to a 5-3 victory and the pennant.

Yaz kept swinging, averaging .400 with three homers in the World Series. But the dream season didn't end happily for his team.

Boston lost the Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals, led by fireballing pitcher Bob Gibson, another future Hall of Famer.

Bresciani says Yaz's greatest regret was never bringing a world championship to Boston.

He kept trying. Bresciani remembers the 1975 playoffs against Oakland when Jim Rice broke his hand. Yaz had to return to left field.

"He rose to the challenge. He made great play after great play," said Bresciani. "Yaz always prided himself on his defensive skills. But he was also clutch at the plate in that series, hitting well over .400."

In 1977, Yaz was asked to play left again. He did not commit a single error en route to winning his seventh Gold Glove — at age 38.

At his Hall of Fame induction, Yaz said that he never felt he had great talent and that he had to work harder than most. He knew what helped him play 23 seasons with the same team, a record he shares with Baltimore's Brooks Robinson.

"The race doesn't always belong to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," Yaz said at his special day in Cooperstown, N.Y. "It belongs rather to those who run the race, who stay the course and who fight the good fight."


BY BRAD KELLY