What if Dave Kingman...
had been purchased by The Boston Red Sox on February 28, 1975 from The San Francisco Giants for $160,000 instead of being purchased by the New York Mets from the San Francisco Giants for $150,000 ? Would Kingman have had a Hall of Fame career ? Statistics say: YES !!!
In THE REAL BASEBALL TIMELINE, in 76 Lifetime At-Bats at Fenway Park, Dave Kingman slugged an astounding 13 Home Runs. From 1975 until he retired after the 1986 season, Dave Kingman had 5435 At-Bats. Let's say that half of those had taken place at Fenway Park. That's 2718 At-Bats at Fenway Park from 1975 to 1986, mostly as a DH, but sometimes at first base, in a pinch at 3B, and maybe a few times as an outfielder if no other option was available. That projects to 465 Home Runs at Fenway Park ALONE from 1975 to 1986 as a Boston Red Sox. With the Giants from 1971-1974 he hit 77 Home Runs. That gives us a hypothetical total of 542 Career Home Runs before we even attempt to calculate his AWAY game Home Run production from 1975-1986 while playing with The Boston Red Sox in The American League. In REAL LIFE, Dave Kingman had a grand total of 106 HR in The American League, 6 in 1977, (ALL of them hit at the AWAY ballpark by the way in 18 games) and 100 HR for The Oakland A's from 1984-1986. 58 American League HR were at Away ballparks and 48 HR were at Home Ballparks. So what if Dave Kingman had 2717 At-Bats in the American League at AWAY PARKS (Parks other than Fenway Park) from 1975-1986 ? I project that Dave Kingman could possibly have hit 487 Home Runs on the road from 1975-1986, more likely about 365, at at a minimum, 240 Away Home Runs. That gives him a Career total of either 1029 HR, 907 HR, or at a minimum, 782 career HR, which is 20 more HR than Barry Bonds finished with. Let's go with the middle number and round it down 900 HR for Dave Kingman. It all boils down to this: If Dave Kingman had played for The Boston Red Sox from 1975-1986, he may have hit 823 HR in a Red Sox uniform ALONE, 465 at Home and 358 on the Road. His actual career HR total was 442.
In other words, he would have hit about twice that many if he had played with the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park from 1975-1986.
I'm of the opinion that this would have meant Red Sox World Series wins in 1975, 1977, 1978, and 1986 at the very least. Once Fisk came back from his injury in June 1975, and once Griffin went down with his injury in June 1975, the lineup vs. RHP would have been as follows:
Fred Lynn CF
Carlton Fisk C
Dave Kingman DH
Jim Rice LF
Carl Yastrzemski 1B
Dwight Evans RF
Rico Petrocelli 3B
Denny Doyle 2B
Rick Burleson SS
In 1975, once it became apparent that Petrocelli's knees were shot,
you could have played Kingman at 3B (he played 154 games at 3B in his career) and moved Bernie Carbo to DH vs RHP and Juan Beniquez at DH vs LHP with Yaz still at 1B. For 1976 and beyond, Kingman could have played 3B until Petrocelli's heir apparent (at that point, Butch Hobson or Ted Cox) proved himself. With a few butterflies, perhaps it is error prone slugger Butch Hobson who's included in the package of players that obtains Dennis Eckersley after the 1977 season, and Ted Cox lives up to his hype in Boston, but at 2B instead of at 3B. My point ?
Dave Kingman in Boston hitting in Fenway Park for the majority of his career is a Hall of Famer on the first ballot and leads the Red Sox to at least 5 World Series championships between 1975 and 1986.