Page 172 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 165
debut at Fenway Park on June 28 in a 12-8 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Getting the start at third base and batting second, he went 2-for-5, doubling o Jim Palmer and hitting his rst major-league homer in the sixth o Rudy May. Center elder Paul Blair missed catching Hobson’s drive to center, allowing Hobson to circle the bases with Cecil Cooper ahead of him for the inside-the-park home run.
Hobson played 76 games at third base in 1976 for the Red Sox as the successor at the hot corner to Rico Petrocelli. Petrocelli was winding down a 13-year career with the Red Sox, hitting only .213 in 85 games in his nal season. Hobson, made the everyday third baseman by new manager Don Zimmer (who replaced Darrell Johnson after the All-Star break), hit .234, contributing eight homers and 34 RBIs.
e 1977 season was Hobson’s breakout year and also his nest as a major leaguer. He smashed 30 round- trippers, establishing a Red Sox record for third basemen. It has often been printed that Hobson set his standard for Red Sox third basemen while hitting in the ninth spot in the batting order. In fact, in 159 games in 1977, he hit third in ve games, sixth in 12 games, seventh in 47 games, eighth in 89 games, and ninth in only six games. He hit no homers in the nine spot. Twenty-eight of his 30 homers were hit in the seventh or eighth spot in the batting order. e 1977 Red Sox o ensive juggernaut, a ectionately known as the Crunch Bunch, hit a then team-record 213 home runs, 21 more than the White Sox, who were second in the major leagues. Five Red Sox hit more than 25 homers, with Jim Rice leading the American League with 39.
e club hit ve or more homers in eight games. ey slugged 33 home runs in a 10-game stretch from June 14 through June 24 (establishing a major-league record) and 16 in three games against the New York Yankees June 17-19 (also a major-league record). On July 4 the Red Sox hit a then-record eight home runs (still a Red Sox team high), including seven solo shots (still a single-game record) in a 9-6 pounding of the Toronto Blue Jays in Boston. Hobson’s free-swinging ways combined to produce a career-best .265 batting average,
30 homers, 33 doubles, 112 RBIs, and 162 strikeouts (as of 2014 still a Red Sox record for a right-handed batter) in 159 games at third base. Hobson put together an 18-game hitting streak. He was named the BoSox Club Man of the Year for 1977 for his contributions to the success of the team and for his cooperation in community projects.
Old football injuries sustained on the arti cial turf at Alabama contributed to a nightmarish 1978 season defensively for Hobson. Bone chips oating around in his right elbow made every throw from third base an adventure. His impairment would often cause his arm to lock up, disrupting his throws. A familiar sight in 1978 was Hobson making a play and then rearrang- ing the bone chips in his elbow. In addition to his sore arm, Hobson was hobbled by cartilage damage in both knees and a torn hamstring muscle. He played 133 games at third base in 1978 (he also served as the DH in 14 games), and he drove in 21 runs in a 10-game stretch from April 14 through 23. Hobson’s 43 errors yielded a elding percentage of .899, the rst time since 1916 that a regular player’s defensive average registered below .900 for the season.
Manager Zimmer, accurately characterizing Hobson as a “gamer,” refused to pull him out of the lineup. While his defense su ered, he would manage to be a productive hitter, belting 17 homers and driving in 80 runs. He nally asked out of the lineup on September 22 in preparation for postseason elbow surgery, with Jack Brohamer lling in at third and Hobson still serving as a DH. In the 5-4 playo loss to the Yankees on October 2, Hobson was 1-for-4 (a single) in the number seven spot in the order while serving as the designated hitter.
Hobson came back in 1979 to play 142 games at third base. He slugged a career-high .496, batting .261 with 28 homers and 93 RBIs. Shoulder problems in 1980 prompted Zimmer to replace him at third with rookie Glenn Ho man, who hit .285 in 110 games, while Hobson’s batting average dropped to .228 (with 11 home runs and 39 RBIs) in 93 games, 57 of them at third base. On May 31 the Red Sox hit six home runs, including a back-to-back-to-back trio by Tony Perez,