Red Sox Hall of Fame Memorable Moments

Roger Clemens set a Major League record by striking out 20 Seattle Mariners on April 29, 1986 at Fenway Park. He broke the record of 19 set by Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver. In the 121-year history of Major League Baseball in 1986, Clemens is the only pitcher to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game. The 23-year-old right-hander struck out the side three times, including the first three batters he faced, all swinging, allowed no walks and just three hits in the 3-1 Red Sox win. He also struck out eight straight batters to tie an American League record. Of the 138 pitches that Clemens threw, 97 were strikes. The feat was performed in only his fourth start after his August 1985 season-ending right shoulder surgery.

At 12:34 a.m. on October 22, 1975, in Game 6 of the World Series vs. the Cincinnati Reds at Fenway Park, Carlton Fisk stepped to the plate with the game tied, 6-6. It was the bottom of the 12th inning of the four-hour and one-minute marathon, with no outs, when the Red Sox catcher sent a high drive to left field on a 1-0 count. The ball hit off the left-field foul pole for a dramatic game-winning home run, a 7-6 Red Sox win and a Game 7 match-up. The climactic blast and the image of the leaping Fisk frantically waving the ball fair then clapping his hands, are forever etched in every fan's memory. The Series is considered by many as the greatest ever played.

Down to their last strike trailing the California Angels, 5-4, in Game 5 of the ALCS. on October 12, 1986, Dave Henderson stroked Donnie Moore's 2-2 pitch, with a man on, over the left-field fence for a stunning 6-5 lead. The Angels tied the game in the bottom of the 9th, but Henderson's sacrifice fly in the 11th inning gave the Red Sox a thrilling 7-6 win. Trailing in the series 3 games to 2, the Red Sox beat the Angels in Games 6 and 7 in Fenway Park to win their 10th American League pennant in one of the great comebacks in baseball history.

Earl Wilson achieved a baseball milestone on June 26, 1962, at Fenway Park when he no-hit the Los Angeles Angels, 2-0, becoming the first African-American to pitch a no-hitter in American League history. It was also the first no-hitter in Fenway Park by a Red Sox pitcher since Mel Parnell's no-hitter in 1956, and the first one by a Red Sox right-hander since Howard Ehmke's in 1923. The no-hitter was Wilson's first complete game of the season and also his first Major League shutout. He allowed four walks and struck out five batters. Only two Angels reached second base. To further help his cause, the 26-year-old Wilson hit a 420-foot solo home run in the third inning of that game off left-hander Bo Belinsky.

The Red Sox trailed the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3, with two outs in the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. The inning started as Fred Lynn hit a leadoff single and Rico Petrocelli walked to bring the tying run to the plate with no outs. Cincinnati brought in their rookie sensation, right-handed flamethrower Rawley Eastwick, and he responded with two consecutive outs. Bernie Carbo came up to pinch hit for LHP Roger Moret and hit a 2-2 pitch into the center-field bleachers to tie the score, 6-6. His electrifying HR sent the game into extra innings and set the stage for one of the greatest moments in World Series history: Carlton Fisk's 12th-inning, game-ending blast off the left-field foul pole that brought a 7-6 victory and forced a Game 7.

Dave Roberts' stolen base in the pivotal Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, was one of the most defining moments in Red Sox history. With the Yankees ahead, 4-3, Kevin Millar led off the ninth inning with a walk off relief ace Mariano Rivera, and Roberts entered the game as a pinch runner for Millar. Roberts' steal of second base and eventual scoring on Bill Mueller's single tied the game which the Red Sox won, 6-4, in 12 innings to keep their postseason hopes alive and forge the greatest comeback in postseason baseball history. The Red Sox won their next three games vs. New York to win the American League pennant and four straight vs. the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series for the first time since 1918.

On September 28, 1960, the Red Sox final home game of the season, 42-year-old Ted Williams drove Baltimore Orioles right-hander Jack Fisher's 1-1 pitch in the bottom of the eighth inning into the Red Sox bullpen. The 400-foot home run, his 521st overall, came in his 7,706th and final at-bat of an illustrious career and cut the Orioles' lead to 4-3. He was replaced defensively in the 9th inning as Boston won the game in the bottom of that inning, 5-4. Before the game had even started, the Red Sox announced that his number 9 would be retired. A recorded crowd of 10,454 witnessed the drama firsthand, but many fans attested to having been at Fenway Park that momentous day.

In a must-win Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS vs. the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium on October 19, Curt Schilling, pitching on a dislocated right ankle tendon, rose to the occasion. After having the tendon sutured to the ankle bone the day before, the Red Sox veteran allowed just one run and four hits as blood soaked through his sock during the gutsy seven-inning performance. His teammates outscored New York, 4-2, to advance to the pivotal Game 7, that was won by Boston, setting the stage for their eventual four-game World Series sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. The moment is more familiarly known as "The Bloody Sock Game."

On October 3, 1990, with the Red Sox ahead, 3-1, vs. the Chicago White Sox with two out and two on in the top of the ninth inning at Fenway Park, right fielder Tom Brunansky made an amazing, diving catch of a ball hit by Ozzie Guillen off closer Jeff Reardon. The spectacular catch not only preserved the Red Sox win on the final night of the season but also clinched the American League Eastern Division title for Boston. The ball was a line drive down the right-field line, and with the base runners going on a 3-2 pitch, Brunansky slid in the gravel toward the wall and made the catch as Fenway Park erupted in celebration.

Generations of New Englanders fondly remember the events of October 1, 1967, when the Red Sox rallied to beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-3, on the final day of the season to win the "Impossible Dream" pennant. Jim Lonborg won his 22nd game of the season and beat out a bunt hit to start the winning five-run rally in the sixth inning. Carl Yastrzemski went 4-4 including the game-tying, two-run single, and threw out a runner at second base to stifle the Twins' last rally in the 8th inning. After the final out was made, Lonborg was carried off the field by his exuberant teammates as thousands of ecstatic fans stormed the Fenway field. Lonborg won the Cy Young Award and Yaz garnered A.L. MVP honors and Major League Baseball's Triple Crown.

Before a sellout crowd of 55,239 at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 10, 1999, Pedro Martinez did what no other opposing pitcher ever did in "The House that Ruth Built," he struck out 17 Yankee batters. In addition to this feat, Martinez allowed only one hit in the second one-hitter of his career, a 2nd inning home run to Chili Davis. Following the blast, he retired the final 22 Yankees, 15 by strikeout. Martinez struck out the side three times, including the 7th inning that featured Derek Jeter, Paul O'Neill, and Bernie Williams. Boston won the game, 3-1, on Mike Stanley's 2-run 6th inning home run. Martinez improved his record on the season to a stellar 21-4.

The Red Sox had never come back to win a postseason game in which they trailed by four or more runs entering the eighth inning when David Ortiz came to the plate with the bases loaded against Detroit reliever Joaquin Benoit and the Tigers leading, 5-1, in Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS. In 26 regular-season plate appearances against Benoit, Ortiz had never homered. But swinging at a first-pitch changeup, the Sox DH launched a drive into the Red Sox bullpen, just out of the reach of Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter, who fell head over heels into the pen as a Boston cop stationed there, Steve Horgan, raised his arms in celebration. The Sox won the game an inning later, eliminated the Tigers in six games, and went on to their third World Series title in 10 seasons.

On July 21, 1959, in Chicago's Comiskey Park, 25-year-old Red Sox infielder Elijah "Pumpsie" Green made his Major League debut. He had been summoned earlier in the day from Triple-A Minneapolis and entered the game against the White Sox as a pinch-runner at first base for Vic Wertz in the eighth inning. In that moment, he became the first African-American to play for the Red Sox. The next day in Chicago, he made his first start for the Red Sox, playing second base, and on July 28 in Cleveland, he singled off Jim Perry of the Indians for his first Major League hit. On August 4, he made his Fenway Park debut against the Kansas City Athletics and led off the game with a triple off the left-field wall. Overall with Boston, he hit .244 (181-for-742) and had a .353 on-base average in 327 games from 1959 to 1962.

On Oct. 27, 2004, the Red Sox completed a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, ending an 86-year gap between championships that had been mythologized as the "Curse of the Bambino," a reference to the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees a year after Boston's last World Series title, 1918. The Red Sox swept the Anaheim Angels in the American League division series, then staged an unprecedented comeback, overcoming a 3-games-to-none deficit against the New York Yankees to win the ALCS in seven games. The self-styled group of "Idiots" managed by Terry Francona then dispatched the Cardinals, a team that won 105 games in the regular season, in the World Series, winning the Series finale, 3-0, in Busch Stadium. Closer Keith Foulke flipped a comebacker to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz for the final out.

On April 14, 1967, Billy Rohr made his Major League debut in Yankee Stadium at only 21 years old. Opposing future Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey Ford, he came within one pitch of becoming the first big leaguer ever to throw a no-hitter in his debut. With two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth inning, he allowed a single to Elston Howard before retiring Charley Smith for the final out of a 3-0 Red Sox victory. Boston would go on to win the A.L. pennant with a record of 92-70 in their "Impossible Dream" season, their first winning campaign since 1958 and their first World Series appearance since 1946.