[Kutcher55]

So, I have been hanging with my parents lately, helping support them as mom is not doing well. Last night my dad reminded me of a magical story involving Yaz that took place in 1979. Although I was only 6-years-old at the time and don't remember it happening, I do remember listening to the mini audio cassette of Ned Martin's radio call back in the 80s so I do verify this is all 95%+ accurate.

Anyway, it was the summer of 1979 and we needed a new car. My dad was convinced he would win one as the Sox had that "home run wins a car" contest during a middle inning each game back in those days. Unfortunately, as the summer went on, my dad's name was not drawn and so he gave up and they bought a car - an incredibly crappy Dodge Aspen, which was a total lemon - this was just before Lee Iacocca took over, but I digress. Anyway, shortly afterward we were driving around as a family, coming back from Nantasket beach or something, listening to the Sox, and it was the home run inning. Carl Yastrzemski strode to the plate and Martin says, "if Yaz hits a home run then Dick Perlmutter from Newton, Massachusetts will win a new 1979 Plymouth Vallari.

My Dad pulled over to the side of the road to listen to the at-bat. Sure enough, "There's a long drive, home run! And Dick Perlmutter has won a new car..." This actually happened. Unbelievable. When they interviewed my dad, he told them he was annoyed he had just bought a new F-ing car and so they had to cut out the segment. Very uncharacteristic of him; I guess he was just overly excited. But anyways, he said he'd take the money and it turned out to be $2,100, which shows you how cheap cars were back then. I guess this was a totally stripped-down car for the contest and thus not worth much. Still a tidy little score and a family story for the ages...

But wait there's more. My dad made a sizeable donation of his winnings to the Jimmy Fund. A few days later he got a call from someone in the Red Sox front office who informed him that Carl Yastrzemski said what he had done was "a very big league thing to do," and that Yaz wanted to meet him. And so they invited him to a game to meet Yaz. But get this -- they didn't have tickets for him. They said come on this date and get tickets and Yaz would meet him. So my Dad did it and sure enough he was invited onto the field where my mom and him had a pre-game photo taken with the one and only Carl Yastrzemski, the man they call Yaz.

This story gave me somewhat of an emotional attachment to Yaz and why he became my favorite player when I got into baseball back in 1982 or so. I also attended Yaz Day in '83 and remember the outpouring of support for this guy, who played so hard and so consistently for so many years. It probably wasn't an accident that when I got back into the hobby back in 2019, the Yaz rookie was the first card I bought. Happy New Year.