On September 12th, 1979, future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox collected his 3,000th hit against Jim Beattie during a 9-2 win over the rival New York Yankees.

In 1967, Carl Yastrzemski had one of the best seasons anyone has ever had in the history of baseball. He won the Triple Crown, leading the league in BA, HR, RBI. He won the American League Most Valuable Player Award leading the Boston Red Sox to a pennant. The only thing that kept him and Boston from winning a World Series that year was Bob Gibson.

Yaz is one of those iconic players that seem to embody everything that is most wonderful about the game of baseball. He went to 18 All-Star Games and played all 22 seasons for the Red Sox. Like Ted Williams he is inseparable from the Red Sox and from their ballpark, Fenway.

Between Christmas and New Years this past year, my family and I visited Boston and took a tour of Fenway. (No, I have not seen a game there…yet.) Standing on the top of the Green Monster and looking down at left-field where Yaz played most of his career, I wondered what it would have been like to be in Fenway for a game in 1967 while Yaz carried his team to the pennant.

Yaz’s grandson, Mike Yastrzemki currently plays for the San Francisco Giants. He is an outfielder like his grandfather, but is usually in center or right. It is impossible for me to watch him and not root for him. He is the closest thing to watching Yaz play that we have, short of my dreamed-of Baseball Time Machine.