He’s Among Red Sox in Top Drawer

You ask a Boston fan who were the greatest Red Sox players, year in and year out, in history and he’s not stuck for an answer. The names of Jimmie Foxx--pronounced Fawks as in Sawks, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski roll trippingly off the tongue.

Boston loves its heroes and the names of old Double X, Yaz and the Thumper or Teddy Ballgame, as he called himself, bring a mist to the eyes and a choke to the throat of these proper Bostonians.

Then you say, “But what about Dwight Evans?” and a puzzled look crosses their faces. They don’t exactly say, “Who?” but they give you this kind of bemused, tolerant look.

“Oh, yes, Dewey Evans,” they concede. “Well, he is consistent.”

Consistent? You bet! So was Henry Aaron. So was Willie Mays. Lou Gehrig. So was Napoleon.

Dewey, or Dwight Evans has been so consistent he has to be mentioned in the same breath with Ted and Yaz or any Red Socker who ever played.

Jimmie Foxx? You want to talk about old Double X as Fenway’s hero? Well, Jimmie hit 222 homers for the Red Sox. Dwight Evans has hit 375.

As a matter of fact, the only two Red Sox players ever to hit more were Williams and Yastrzemski. Ted had 521, Carl 452.

Dwight has his 375 and he isn’t through yet.

The facts of the matter are, Ted and Yaz are the only Red Sox who have done more for the club than Evans. The three are really yoked in every category.

Ted and Yaz are the only Sox who have scored more runs than Evans, Yaz 1,816, Ted 1,798. Evans has 1,408, and counting.

Ted and Yaz are the only ones who have more doubles, more extra-base hits, and, when this season is over, they’ll be the only ones who have more total bases. When Evans’ career is over, they’ll be the only ones who have more runs batted in.

So, will his number be added to the four the Red Sox have retired? Will he go to join Williams, Yastrzemski, Joe Cronin and Bobby Doerr as one whose uniform will be hanging from the rafters in the Fenway museum?

Not the way to bet. Dwight Evans is as taken for granted in Boston as scrod. Or the Old North Church. He’s as overlooked as the ground crew. Williams could stop traffic when he came to Fenway Park. Evans can’t get a cab.

His specialty was playing in the shadow. Everyone has trouble escaping the long shade of Williams and Yastrzemski. But Evans was on the shady side of Fred Lynn, then Jim Rice. Even Rico Petrocelli got more notice than he did.

It’s a Boston phenomenon. Because for 18 years now, whenever a ball came down in right field in Fenway Park, Dwight Evans would be under it. When a runner tried to go from first to third on a single to right, Dwight Evans got the ball there ahead of him. With the game on the line and men on base and Dwight Evans up, they were going to score.

When people talk of the 1975 World Series, one of the great ones of history, they talk of Carlton Fisk’s game-winning home run in the 12th inning of the sixth game.

But there wouldn’t have been a 12th inning if it hadn’t been for the greatest single play of that tournament. The circumstances were these: The score was tied, there was one out, Ken Griffey was on first for the Cincinnati Reds, and Joe Morgan hit a home run in the right-field seats.

Well, it should have been a home run. It was three seats into the stands when Dwight Evans leaped back and caught it. When he came down, he threw to first and doubled off Griffey. If the Red Sox had won the Series the next night, that catch would be in Cooperstown.

If the ball stayed in the park--and sometimes if it didn’t--Dwight Evans caught it.

He’s not only a Red Sox leader, he’s one of the game’s. He’s the only major league player to have hit 20 or more home runs every year for the last decade, the only one to have driven in 100 runs in each of the last three seasons. His 334 runs batted in for the last three years are second only to George Bell’s 335.

So why isn’t he a Boston landmark, like Old Ironsides or Faneuil Hall or Bunker Hill?

If you had a blueprint from God 20 years ago and could have designed yourself a franchise player for the next 20 years, you could have done worse than Dwight Michael Evans. Clear-eyed, flat-bellied, strong, quick, alert, combative, he was a manager’s dream. Right field was taken care of. So was a power part of the lineup if you needed--or the leadoff spot, if that was up for grabs.

Dwight Evans was one of those kids who grew up in the sun of Hawaii and California and could do anything you needed with a football, basketball or baseball.

If he had played in New York, he might have long since come to be known as “Old Reliable” and adjectives like trusty and disciplined and conscientious would have crept into the copy. No one ever had to say, “Anybody here seen Evans?” He was always right where he had to be--on base, camped under a fly ball or in position to make the play at the plate.

Yet, he was never the star. It wasn’t as if he were a born sidekick or the star’s best friend. Evans had movie-star good looks, a quick wit, a flash temper and he hated to lose. Star quality.

Being taken for granted is an art form all its own. Evans treats it as just another line drive coming down the line out of the lights.

“I have never felt the need to test the free-agent market,” he said the other day.

Had he gone to another team, or even another league, as a free agent, might he have gotten out of the good-old-Dewey Dependable category and gotten superstar status? Gotten out from under Yaz and Teddy Triple Crown?

“I think consistency is my game,” Evans says. “It’s not glamorous but it puts you in the World Series and that’s glamorous. Once you’ve gotten in a World Series, everything else is hanging out.”

When Dwight got in his first World Series in ‘75, the headliners were Yaz, Lynn, Fisk and Luis Tiant. When he got in his second World Series, the heroes were Wade Boggs and Jim Rice, Don Baylor and Roger Clemens. But the one constant was always Dwight Evans. The flank was protected.

If he gets in his third World Series, he will do something not even Ted, with one World Series, nor Yaz, with two, did.

And, of course, if the Red Sox win the World Series--something they haven’t done in 72 years or since Babe Ruth was pitching for them, Dwight Evans not only will escape the shadow of the other two but people in Boston will be hard put to remember who those other two guys even were.