I was a fan of the 1977 Red Sox. That line up had some serious lumber. Rice-Lynn-Evans-Yaz- George Scott-Denny Doyle?-Rick Burleson-Butch Hobson (when his elbow was still good)-Fisk. I forgot about Berrnie Carbo now looking at the Baseball-reference. Carbo actually had more PAs than Evans. 3 guys with 30+ HRs, Yaz with 28, Fisk 26, and 29 out of the Evans/Carbo combo. Lynn only had 18.
Impressive club for sure.
After my Senators skipped town after the ‘71 season I started pulling for the Cincinnati Reds for two reasons; #1 - I always wanted them to beat the Orioles in the World Series and #2 - I disliked all American League teams because they all seemed to beat the hell out of my Senators that were also in the American League at that time.
yes, I’m a scarred bitter man.
“The Big Red Machine” was impressive also with Foster, Bench, Perez, Morgan, Griffey, Rose and Geronimo but it was the homerun record by their hitting coach Ted Kluszewski that was always the most impressive to me.
Ted Kluszewski's three straight seasons of 40-plus home runs, with more home runs than strikeouts (1953 to 1955).
1953: 40 home runs, 34 strikeouts
1954: 49 home runs, 35 strikeouts
1955: 47 home runs, 40 strikeouts
Those numbers were impressive then and look ridiculous today as players trade home runs for strikeouts.
Only PED user Barry Bonds has done it since, hitting 45 home runs while striking-out 41 times in 2004.
Bonds almost achieved the feat in 2002 (46 home runs, 47 strikeouts) as well, and Albert Pujols nearly did it in 2006 (49 home runs, 50 strikeouts). Kluszewski, however, did it three seasons in a row, and it has only happened 10 times altogether -- Mel Ott, Lou Gehrig (twice), Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Mize (twice) are the only others to reach the milestone.
