A Break From the Letdown: Remembering Red Sox All-Star Greats

Photo: The Boston Globe

We’ve been here before. High on hope, finally talking ourselves into believing something might be happening, and then very quickly being reminded that baseball does not care about our feelings.

When I last wrote, the Red Sox had just finished off the Yankees in a 4-game sweep in about the most Red Sox way possible. Down two runs in the bottom of the 10th, against the Yankees, and somehow walking it off. It was dramatic, it was fun, it was exactly the kind of game that makes you start checking the standings again even when you promised yourself you wouldn’t.

And then, of course, they promptly lost 2 of 3 to the Washington Nationals.

So here we are again. Not exactly panicking, because at this point panic requires more energy than most of us have left. But not exactly comfortable either. The Red Sox are still somewhere between “maybe there’s a chance” and “don’t be stupid.” Which, honestly, has been a pretty familiar place for this team lately.

So maybe this is a good week to clear our heads a little bit.

The All-Star votes are in, the Midsummer Classic is set, and instead of trying to figure out what this current Red Sox team is every single day, let’s take a step back and look at some of the Red Sox players who actually owned this time of year. The guys who didn’t just sneak into an All-Star Game once because every team needed a representative. The guys who kept showing up there. The guys who were not just having good first halves, but were viewed around the league as real stars.

For this, I’m looking mostly from the late 1970s through 2025, and focusing on Red Sox players with the most All-Star selections while they were with Boston. Starts matter too, because being voted or picked as a starter says something different. It means the league didn’t just respect you. Fans expected to see you.

Over the last 45-plus years, a handful of Red Sox names show up again and again:

David Ortiz — 10 All-Star selections with the Red Sox

There really isn’t another place to start.

David Ortiz was a 10-time All-Star with the Red Sox, making it in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. That’s basically the entire second half of the Red Sox curse-breaking era and then some.

And it’s easy now to remember Ortiz as the legend, the statue guy, the Hall of Famer, the man with the October speeches and the biggest hits. But in the middle of it, year after year, he was just one of the most feared hitters in baseball. There was a period where if the Red Sox had traffic on base late in a game and Ortiz was coming up, you could almost feel the other dugout tighten up.

That is All-Star stuff. Not just numbers. Presence.

Ortiz was a designated hitter, which makes his All-Star run even more impressive in a weird way. DHs sometimes get dismissed because they don’t play the field. But Ortiz forced his way into those games because his bat was too loud to ignore. He was the face of the lineup, the center of the order, and for a long stretch, the emotional center of the whole franchise.

He wasn’t always an All-Star because of one big first half either. He became one because everyone knew what he represented. Power. Patience. Big moments. And that feeling that no game was completely dead if he still had one swing left.

His 2016 selection might have been the perfect ending. Final season, still producing, still dangerous, still somehow making the entire league stop and appreciate him. That’s rare. A lot of great players get farewell applause. Ortiz earned his way there.

Wade Boggs — 8 All-Star selections with the Red Sox

If Ortiz was power and personality, Wade Boggs was the machine.

Boggs made eight straight All-Star teams with the Red Sox from 1985 through 1992. Eight straight. That is not a hot streak. That is an era.

The thing about Boggs is that his greatness could almost feel boring if you didn’t appreciate what you were watching. He wasn’t launching 40 home runs or creating highlight reels every night. He just hit. And hit. And hit. And then took a walk. And then hit again.

For a long time, Boggs was basically automatic. He was one of the best pure hitters in baseball, winning batting titles and living on base. He made the All-Star Game because he was exactly what every lineup wanted at the top or near the top: a guy who never seemed to give away an at-bat.

And in All-Star terms, he was the kind of player who fit the game perfectly. You’re trying to showcase the best baseball has to offer? Fine. Here is Wade Boggs, spraying line drives around the field like it’s batting practice.

He also represented a very different Red Sox identity than Ortiz did later. Boggs was part of those 1980s teams that were talented, sometimes exciting, sometimes heartbreaking, and always sort of hanging around the conversation. The 1986 team will always define that group for obvious painful reasons, but Boggs was more than one postseason. He was excellence over and over again.

Not flashy. Not loud. Just great.

And maybe that’s why he belongs so high on this list. Because making eight straight All-Star teams as a hitter means there was never much debate. Everyone knew.

Jim Rice — 8 All-Star selections

Jim Rice is one of those players where the All-Star selections tell you something important about how he was viewed in his own time.

Rice was an eight-time All-Star as a Red Sox player, selected in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. That lines up pretty neatly with the years when he was one of the most intimidating hitters in the American League.

And that’s the word that always comes back with Rice: intimidating.

He was not just good. He was scary. He hit the ball hard, he drove in runs, he carried the middle of the order, and for a stretch there weren’t many hitters in baseball who felt more dangerous. His 1978 season is still one of the great individual Red Sox seasons, and it wasn’t some random spike. Rice was a force for years.

He gets debated sometimes because Hall of Fame debates are exhausting and because people love to compare players across eras like the sport was exactly the same in 1978 as it is now. But in his own time, Rice was clearly viewed as elite. You don’t get picked to eight All-Star teams by accident, especially in an era loaded with big personalities and big bats.

Rice also bridges a few different Red Sox feelings. He was there in the late 1970s, when the Red Sox had real star power. He was still there in the mid-1980s, when the team got back to the World Series. He wasn’t just a one-window player. He was part of the fabric.

If this list is about who Red Sox fans expected to see among the league’s best, Rice absolutely belongs. He was not there as a nice story. He was there because pitchers hated facing him.

Manny Ramirez — 8 All-Star selections with the Red Sox

Then there is Manny.

Manny Ramirez made eight All-Star teams during his Red Sox years, from 2001 through 2008. And with Manny, the baseball part was never complicated. The rest of it could be. But the hitting? That was as simple as it gets.

He was one of the best right-handed hitters any of us have ever watched.

Manny’s Red Sox years were ridiculous offensively. He could hit for average, hit for power, work counts, punish mistakes, and somehow make the hardest thing in sports look casual.

There were times when he looked half-asleep and still hit a ball off the wall. That was part of the whole Manny experience. Frustrating one night, unbelievable the next, and sometimes both in the same game.

But the All-Star selections make sense because, for most of his Boston run, he was appointment viewing. And when you put him next to Ortiz in the middle of that lineup, it created one of the most dangerous duos the Red Sox have ever had. Those two were not just stars in Boston. They were stars everywhere.

Manny was also very much a fan-vote type of All-Star. People wanted to see him. Even fans who hated the Red Sox knew they were watching something special when he was locked in. And in an All-Star Game, where the whole point is to gather the game’s biggest names and biggest bats, Manny fit right in.

Of course, with Manny, the legacy is messy. It always will be. But if we are talking strictly about Red Sox All-Star presence from the late 1970s through 2025, there’s no honest version of the list without him.

For better, worse, and everything in between, Manny was one of the defining Red Sox stars of his time.

Carlton Fisk — 7 All-Star selections with the Red Sox

The fifth spot is where it gets interesting, but Carlton Fisk deserves it.

Fisk was selected to seven All-Star teams as a member of the Red Sox: 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1980. Some of that falls just before the “late 70s” window, but if we’re talking about the bridge from the 1970s into the modern Red Sox All-Star era, Fisk is too important to leave out.

He was not just a catcher who could hit. He was a star catcher. There’s a huge difference.

Catching is brutal. It beats players down. It wears on the legs, the hands, the back, everything. So when a catcher is good enough offensively to be an All-Star again and again, it stands out. Fisk had power, toughness, and that edge that made him feel like he was built for Boston.

And yes, everyone will always go right to the 1975 World Series home run, because how could you not? That image is basically carved into Red Sox history. But Fisk’s All-Star case was bigger than one swing. He was one of the best catchers in the American League during his Boston years.

He also had the kind of personality that mattered here. Tough. Competitive. Maybe not always warm and fuzzy, but that was sort of the point. He played like every pitch annoyed him a little bit.

Fisk eventually became part of White Sox history too, but his Red Sox All-Star run still matters. He was part of a time when Boston had real star power all over the field, and he gave the franchise one of its best players at one of the hardest positions in the sport.

A few others who deserve a mention

The hard part about a list like this is that you immediately start leaving out names that feel wrong to leave out.

Fred Lynn made six All-Star teams with the Red Sox from 1975 through 1980, and if we were just talking pure talent and peak, he could absolutely be in the main five. Roger Clemens made five as a Red Sox pitcher, and when he was at his best, he was probably the best pitcher in baseball. Nomar Garciaparra made five too, and for a few years there he felt like the future of the whole franchise. Pedro Martinez only made four All-Star teams with the Red Sox, which feels low until you remember that his peak was so insane that no number really captures it correctly.

And then there’s Carl Yastrzemski, who is almost in his own separate category. Yaz had 18 All-Star selections as a Red Sox player and was still showing up in the late 70s and early 80s. But since so much of his All-Star story belongs to the 1960s and early 1970s, he doesn’t quite fit this specific modern window the same way. Still, any Red Sox All-Star conversation that doesn’t at least nod to Yaz feels illegal.

That’s what’s fun about looking back at these names. It reminds you that the Red Sox, for all the chaos and frustration and completely unnecessary drama they give us, have had real stars. Not just local favorites. Not just “he’s good if you watch him every day” guys. Actual national stars.

And maybe that’s why the All-Star break hits a little differently when the current team is confusing.

Because it gives us a chance to step away from the daily arguments. The bullpen usage. The lineup construction. The trade deadline. The standings. The “are they buyers or sellers?” conversation that makes everyone miserable.

For a few days, baseball gets to be about stars again.

And for Red Sox fans, there’s a long line of them to remember. Ortiz smiling through another big moment. Boggs lining a ball the other way. Rice looking like he could dent the wall. Manny being Manny, for all that came with it. Fisk grinding through another game behind the plate.

It doesn’t fix the current team. It doesn’t make losing 2 of 3 to Washington feel better. It doesn’t tell us what Craig Breslow should do at the deadline or whether this season still has one more run in it.

But it does remind us of something.

When the Red Sox are good, and when they have real stars, this place feels different.

And maybe that’s why we keep talking ourselves back into it.

Written by: Tim Hourihan

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