Carl Yastrzemski, Boston Red Sox, 3,303 games
Yaz played more games in a Red Sox uniform than any player in MLB history has played in any single uniform. Signed out of Notre Dame, he debuted in 1961, replacing the greatest legend in Boston history, Ted Williams, who had retired the previous fall.
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It was a daunting task but nobody could have handled it better than Yastrzemski, who won his first batting title in 1963, batting .321. He added two more in 1967 and 1968.
The 1967 season obviously is Yastrzemski’s signature performance. He won the triple crown with 44 home runs, 121 RBIs and a .326 batting average. That effort lifted the long-downtrodden Red Sox from ninth place to a pennant won on the season’s final weekend when the Sox swept two games from the Minnesota Twins. In those two games, Yastrzemski delivered seven hits, one of them a home run, and six RBIs, punctuating his MVP case.
He batted .400 with three more home runs in the World Series, although Boston lost to St. Louis in seven games.
An annual MLB All-Star from 1964 through 1979, Yastrzemski gradually shifted to first base as age reduced his range in left. But he played 131 games as late as 1982, when he was 42 and in his 22nd season with the Sox. He retired after the 1983 season with 3,419 hits and 452 home runs and was a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.