Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran’s big All-Star moment comes with an enduring connection to Ted Williams

ARLINGTON, Texas — When the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame asks a player for something, he’s prepared to respond with a follow-up question: Have you ever been to Cooperstown??

Many of them say yes, since their youth league days. And when they do, they are asked another question, as happened to Jarren Duran late Tuesday night.

“I always ask players how many putts they hit, because they always remember,” said Josh Rawicz, the hall’s president since 2021. “And he said he hit 16 putts. I said, ‘16?’ And he said, ‘Well, the court was small.’”

Rawicz was given Duran’s American League jersey — No. 16, actually — to help the museum tell the story of the 2024 All-Star Game. Duran, the Boston Red Sox center fielder, hit two home runs in the fifth inning to lead the American League to a 5-3 victory over the National League at Globe Life Stadium.

For this reason, Duran was awarded the Crystal Bat Award as the MVP of the All-Star Game at Ted Williams University. He is only the second Boston player to win the award since the league named it after Williams in 2002, the year he died. (The other was J.D. Drew at Yankee Stadium in 2008.)

Duran is 27, the same age Williams was in 1946, when he also hit a home run in the All-Star Game and then led the Red Sox to the American League title. By then, Williams had already hit .406 in a season, won a triple and lost three years of his career to World War II.

Attaching yourself to the Teddy Ballgame is a lot of processing.

“I mean, after Ted Williams, the Red Sox, this is a huge honor,” Duran said. “Who else would I want to try to follow in the footsteps of a man like him, who was not just a great baseball player but a great human being? This man was great, and I’m honored to be able to receive his award.”

Duran’s big hit came in his first All-Star game, as a mid-inning replacement for New York Yankees starter Aaron Judge. With two outfielders and Baltimore Orioles catcher Anthony Santander at first base, Duran took a big hit from Cincinnati Reds catcher Hunter Green on a 96-mph fastball up the middle. That was the plan.

“I knew he was throwing the ball really hard, so I was praying he would throw me a fastball on the first pitch so I could see how hard it was,” Duran said. “Then I was hoping I could throw the ball up. He just happened to leave a throw up.”

The next ball was up, a no-bite splitter that hit 86 mph. The left-handed Duran hit the ball 413 feet into the seats above the right-field relief bullpen. The Cooperstown All-Stars couldn’t contain the young Duran, and now the Major League Baseball All-Star Hall of Fame couldn’t contain Duran either.

“I thought it was going to be a double or a triple or something, because that’s basically what he does,” said Duran’s father, Octavio, who was watching the game from the first-base stands as part of an eight-person cheering group for his son.

“And then, after he hit it, I realized that when he made that particular shot, he looked at the ball as if to say, ‘OK, I hit it hard enough, it’s going to go out.’”

Duran’s amazing jump revealed it: this was undoubtedly a relief to his mother, Dina.

“I was nervous when he was playing football,” she said. “It wasn’t really any different, just the stage was bigger. It still feels the same.”

But those nerves disappear when the ball flies too far, don’t they?

“Oh, yes,” she said, laughing. “It’s like, ‘Thank you, God, my prayers worked today!’”

Duran grew up in Southern California, playing football, basketball and baseball for a well-rounded sports experience. He enjoyed football as a linebacker and free safety — “he loved hitting,” Octavio said — but was drawn to baseball because of its longer career prospects. His confidence came early.

“I would put him in tournaments or camps, and the kids would win trophies and he would say, ‘Dad, don’t worry about it. I’m going to win the grand prize’ — and he did win MVP awards when he played travel soccer and stuff like that,” Octavio Duran said. “He never ceases to amaze me with the things he does.”

In 2018, the Red Sox drafted Duran in the seventh round of the Long Beach State Championship, and he qualified for the Futures the following year. He quickly became a top-100 prospect, but struggled in his first two seasons before a stellar 2023 campaign that ended with toe surgery in August.

This year, Duran has hit .284/.342/.477, with 27 doubles, a league-best, 10 triples, and 10 home runs, a major league-best. He ranks fourth in the league in extra-base hits—behind Judge, Gunnar Henderson, and Bobby Witt Jr.—and with 22 steals in 26 attempts, he embodies the spirit of the Red Sox’s incredible team.

After consecutive last-place finishes and a low-budget, experimental season, Boston reached the All-Star break with a 53-42 record, finishing third in the NBA playoffs.

“We have a lot of young guys who love to play,” Duran said. “We play hard every game. We pass the ball, we press the defense, we stick together and support each other. I know we get beat up sometimes, but the way we come back and fight back is something big. That’s a great thing from a young team.”

The Red Sox are still searching for a national identity; their best player, Rafael Devers, has been keeping a low profile, sitting out the All-Star Game to rest a sore shoulder. And surely the most recognizable Red Sox figure in the American League ballpark Tuesday was David Ortiz, the retired slugger who works for Fox.

Ortiz is one of 13 Red Sox players who have hit an All-Star Game before Tuesday, a list filled with Hall of Famers and other notable names.

Duran is now with them. He called his All-Star experience unreal, but he earned it with his first-half performance. Then he confirmed his new status by swinging the game.

“I’m so grateful,” Duran said. “It’s hard to put into words. I won’t realize how grateful I am until I try to sleep tonight. Who knows if I’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

(Top photo of Jarren Duran: Maddi Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)