A solitary red seat in a sea of green plastic in Fenway Park’s right field grandstand marks the spot where Ted Williams 502 foot HR landed on June 9, 1946. Quizzed by the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, Red Sox DH David Ortiz expressed doubts (“the red seat? Cough – bullhshit – cough”) Williams (or anyone else) could hit a ball that far :
“I don’t think anyone has ever hit one there,” said Ortiz. “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.”
Yet the historical record is fairly clear. The front page of the Boston Globe on June 10, 1946, featured a picture of Joseph Boucher holding the straw hat that Ted Williams’s blast punctured while he sat in the famous seat.