Beginning in his rookie year, Fred Lynn was the consummate hitter. He was part of the famous Red Sox outfield that included Dwight Evans and Jim Rice and occasionally Carl Yastrzemski. It was in 1979 when he had his career year for the Red Sox. That year, he led the AL in batting (.333), OBP (.423) and slugging (.637) all while hitting 39 homers.
Chicago native, Lynn also drove in 122 runs and scored 116 himself all while playing impeccable defense in center field.
| Split | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 Totals | 147 | 622 | 531 | 116 | 177 | 42 | 1 | 39 | 122 | 2 | 82 | 79 | .333 | .423 | .637 |
Lynn gets a somewhat uncommon 1-1-6-6-6 power number combination for his 1979 card. Uncommon, I suppose because APBA didn’t want to make it too strong (and too unrealistic, for that matter) with a runner on third. Indeed, Lynn would have five chances for a homer in that situation.
Fred Lynn gets a 55-7 on top of that. With his four 8s, he has a 9 on 42.
Fun numbers: 44-6, 55-7, 26-14
Lynn was one of those players that did everything right. While he didn’t steal many bases, he didn’t ground into too many double plays (41-28) either. He was a great fielder (OF-3, 36 arm), walked plenty (five 14s) and even took one for the team once in while (one 22).
Here’s a trivia question for old time Red Sox fans: Fred Lynn DHed just once in 1979. Who played center field for the Red Sox when Lynn did that? Hint: he wasn’t a full time Sox outfielder.
I’ll go with that Tom Poquette. I’m doing a 79 replay (and Lynn is a monster…), but am NOT a Sox fan. :-)
Bob
It is indeed Tom Poquette.
The game in question…
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR197909172.shtml
Do I get box seat tickets to a Thunderchickens game? Or the Locomotives? Hope the arm is feeling better….
I got 4 HRs by rolling a 44 -6 and 4 More by rolling the 22 and 33 in the replay season our league played. Lynn hit 44 total HRs for me with 1triple 38 doubles. He batted .326 with 75 BBs . Not bad for a league of ten teams, you rarely saw a C pitcher
I played 1979 with the original set that this card is from. It was my first APBA game, in fact, back in the glorious days when you got all the teams with the game. Lynn had the most insanely good year any player has ever had for me, and I’ve played a number of replays over the years.
My ’79 AL was hit-happy (the reissue has regraded many of the pitchers and i am keen to play it again to see if it normalizes a bit. Hey, it’s been close to 40 years since I played it before.) Anyway, the Red Sox (97-65) scored exactly 1,000 runs, which gives you an idea how things went. Lynn had 622 abs, 239 hits, scored 157 runs, had 71 doubles (!), 2 triples, 47 HR, an insane 177 rbi, was 3 of 9 in steals, and hit a cool .384. Nutso cuckoo stuff. Jim Rice chimed in with 169 rbi. The rest of the team was more nearly normal, although Burleson scored 140 runs. The red Sox, for all their offense, did not win the east–the Brewers did.
Oh the 1970s Red Sox teams! Lots of power, no speed and just enough pitching to give the Yankees a run for their money!