1967 Boston Red Sox season
The team then faced the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals in the 1967 World Series, which the Red Sox lost in seven games.
For instance, in 1966, the Red Sox ranked eighth out of ten American League teams in home attendance (811,172).
Howard would hit just .147 while replacing Mike Ryan as the starting catcher, forcing the Red Sox to turn to third-stringer Russ Gibson more and more often down the stretch.
With the players on their roster averaging 25.4 years of age, the 1967 Red Sox were the second-youngest team in Major League Baseball that season; only the cellar-dwelling Athletics (24.8) were younger.
As the Red Sox showed promise in the early part of the 1967 season, Conigliaro's expectations from the fans rose exponentially.
Some Red Sox die-hards in fact predicted Conigliaro would finish his career with better numbers than the great Ted Williams.
Conigliaro missed the remainder of the 1967 season and, as Boston held its breath for their young phenom, memories of the long drought of being a winning team in baseball had crept over the Fenway crowd.
Though their young All-Star was out indefinitely, the Red Sox won the game and continued on to win the American League Championship.
Problems with Conigliaro's eyesight returned in 1971 and he had to retire from major league baseball following a stint with the California Angels that year.
However following an early season injury he was replaced in the lineup by rookie and future Hall-of-Famer Jim Rice, and was released shortly thereafter, never to return to professional baseball.
"[10] Four Red Sox players—All-Stars Jim Lonborg and Tony Conigliaro, along with Dalton Jones and Bill Landis—were drafted for military service.
He was one strike away from a no-hitter when Elston Howard, who would join the Red Sox later that season, hit a soft single into right-center field.
Yastrzemski had saved Rohr's no-hit bid earlier in the game when he made an over-the-shoulder running-away catch deep in left field off the bat of Tom Tresh.
Starting September—the last month of the season—the Red Sox sat atop of the American League, but were caught in a dog-fight with Chicago, Minnesota and Detroit.
Unfortunately for the White Sox, a three-game sweep at the hands of the Washington Senators left Chicago three games out of first place and the pennant scramble a three-team race.
[13] To win the pennant, The Red Sox had to sweep the Twins while the Detroit Tigers, playing the California Angels, would have to lose at least one more game.
Carl Yastrzemski, vying for the triple crown, led the American League in batting average and RBI, and shared the home run lead with Harmon Killebrew of the Twins.
The Red Sox won the game 5–3 with a five-run sixth inning, and Lonborg finished the season with 22 victories.
Beyond Yastrzemski completing one of the best single season offensive campaigns, Red Sox players dominated the American League across the board.
= Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts The 2007 season marked the 40th anniversary of The Impossible Dream, which was honored and marked with Opening Day ceremonies featuring members of the 1967 Red Sox team and an hour-long documentary on NESN (a regional sports network part-owned by the Red Sox) called Impossible to Forget.
[26] The Red Sox went on to win the 2007 World Series, a four-game sweep over the Colorado Rockies as well, to earn their second title in four years.
[27] Attending the reunion were: Gary Bell, Darrell "Bucky" Brandon, Jim Lonborg, Dave Morehead, Rico Petrocelli, Billy Rohr, José Santiago, George Thomas, and Carl Yastrzemski.
