Red Sox

Triston Casas casts doubt on Ted Williams’s seat at Fenway Park, believing it might be a ‘myth’

Casas believed his home run Saturday initially had a chance to land where the lone red seat is located.

By Conor Roche

April 14, 2024

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email
• Email
• 13

Triston Casas’s latest home run caused him to drop a take on one of the most iconic things about Fenway Pak.

The Red Sox first baseman expressed doubts over Ted Williams’s famous home run after hitting a 429-foot homer in Saturday’s 7-2 win over the Angels.

“That’s my best ball, for sure,” Casas told reporters of his homer, which had 111.9 mph exit velocity. “I had one hit harder, exit velo-wise, last year. But that Ted Williams seat is starting to feel more and more like a myth.”

Of course, that “Ted Williams seat” is the lone red seat located in the right field bleachers at Fenway Park. The Red Sox icon supposedly hit a home run to that seat on June 9, 1946. The seat is 502 feet away from home plate, located 37 rows up in seat 21 and behind the visiting team’s bullpen.

Williams’s home run ball was actually initially estimated to be a 450-foot home run, according to a story in the following day’s Boston Globe. But it actually could have gone farther than the distance it ended up going. The ball struck a fan named Joseph A. Boucher, putting a hole in his straw hat. Had the ball not hit Boucher, Hit Tracker Online estimated that Williams’s home run could have gone anywhere between 520 and 535 feet.

However, Red Sox players other than Casas have also questioned the legitimacy of Williams’s home run over the years. David Ortiz called the red seat “bull.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever hit one there,” Ortiz said in 2015. “I went up there and sat there one time. That’s far, brother. Listen, do you see the No. 1 [Bobby Doerr’s retired uniform number on the façade above the right field grandstand]? I hit that one time. You know how far it is to that No. 1 from the plate? Very far. And you know how far that red seat is from the No. 1? It’s 25 rows up still. That’s the farthest I’ve ever hit the ball right there, and no one else has gotten to the No. 1 . . . The closest one that I have ever seen — I remember a day game, I hit a ball in that tunnel. But still — I crushed one and it wasn’t even close to that.”

Williams’s 502-foot homer still stands as the longest home run hit in Fenway Park’s history, although there have been close calls. Rowdy Tellez actually hit a home in 2019 that was estimated to be a 505-foot homer, but the official measurement wound up being just 433 feet. Miguel Sanó hit a home run against the Red Sox that went 495 feet in 2021, cleaning the Green Monster in left center field.

Casas’s home run Saturday didn’t have the same juice, appearing to land in the pathway to the grandstand located a few rows behind the visiting bullpen. He thought he had a good chance of matching Williams’s 1946 home run on contact, though.

“It’s looking more and more out of reach as I hit balls better toward that direction,” Casas said. “I think that was literally lined up in that row. I took a peek right before it landed. It felt good initially, but I was kind of demoralized when I saw where it landed compared to where I thought it was going to.”

While Casas expressed disappointment that his home run ball didn’t go further, he’s been hitting much better after a slow opening week to the season. Saturday’s homer was his third of the season as he’s gone 9 for 30 with a double, five RBIs, and a .997 OPS in his last eight games.

“I live for that feeling,” Casas said of hitting home runs. “I literally wake up in the morning, come to the field, work out, stretch, ice bath, do everything for the feeling of hitting a home run. It feels awesome. I wish it counted for more.

“They should put like, ‘If it goes over 420 [feet], it counts for two.’ You need to hit it that well to hit it out to right field here because the bullpen is so far away. It does feel really great.”