Red Sox slugger Jarren Duran’s big All-Star moment comes with a lifelong connection to Ted Williams

ARLINGTON, Texas — When the president of the Baseball Hall of Fame asks a player for an item, he’s ready to ask a follow-up question: Have you ever been to Cooperstown??

Many of them say yes, because of their experience in youth tournaments. And when they do, they’re asked another question, like Jarren Duran’s Tuesday night.

“I always ask players how many home runs they hit, because they always remember,” said Josh Rawitch, the Hall of Fame’s president since 2021. “And he said he hit 16. I said, ‘Sixteen?’ And he said, ‘Well, that was a small pitch.’”

Rawitch retrieved 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 a two-run home run in the fifth inning to lift the AL to a 5-3 victory over the National League at Globe Life Field.

For that, Duran received a crystal bat as the Ted Williams All-Star Game MVP. He is the second Boston player to win the award since the league named it in Williams’ honor in 2002, the year he died. (The other was J.D. Drew at Yankee Stadium in 2008.)

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

Bonding with Teddy Ballgame is a lot to process.

“After Ted Williams, the Red Sox, it’s an honor,” Duran said. “Who else would I want to try to follow in the footsteps of a guy like that, who’s not only a great baseball player but a great human being? That guy was awesome, and I’m honored to be able to receive his award.”

Duran’s home run came in his first All-Star Game, replacing Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees. With two outs and Anthony Santander of the Baltimore Orioles on first base, Duran took a strike from Hunter Greene of the Cincinnati Reds on a 96-mph fastball up the middle. That was the plan.

“I knew he was throwing 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. “After that, I was hoping to make a pitch. It turned out he left a pitch in the air.”

The next pitch was in the air, a dead-end shot that drifted 86 mph. Duran, a left-handed hitter, hit the ball 400 feet into the seats above the right-field bullpen. Cooperstown’s All-Star Village couldn’t hold a young Duran, and now neither could MLB’s All-Star venue.

“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 watched from the first-base stands as part of the eight-person section cheering on his son.

“And then after his swing, I realized that when he had that certain swing, he was looking at the ball like, ‘OK, I hit it hard enough, it’s going to come out.'”

Duran’s cool batting gave him away: it was obvious, and a relief to his mother, Dena.

“I was nervous when he was playing away football,” she said. “It’s not really different, it’s just a bigger stage. It still feels the same.”

But that nervousness disappears when the ball flies that far, doesn’t it?

“Oh, yeah,” she laughed. “It’s like saying, ‘Thank God, my prayers worked today!’”

Duran grew up in Southern California, playing football, basketball and baseball for a well-rounded sports experience. He thrived in football as a linebacker and free agent — “He loved to hit,” Octavio said — but gravitated toward baseball for its longer career prospects. He gained confidence early.

“I put him in tournaments or camps, and kids would win trophies and he’d say, ‘Dad, don’t worry. I’m going to win the big one’ — and of course, he won the MVP award when he played on the road and stuff like that,” Octavio Duran said. “He never ceases to amaze me with what he does.”

The Red Sox drafted Duran in the seventh round out of Long Beach State in 2018, and he played in the Futures Game the following year. He quickly became a consensus top-100 prospect but struggled mightily in his first two seasons before a breakout 2023 that ended with toe surgery in August.

This year, Duran is hitting .284/.342/.477 with an AL-leading 27 doubles, an MLB-leading 10 triples and 10 home runs. He’s 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 surprising Red Sox.

After two consecutive last-place finishes and a shaky, low-budget offseason, Boston reached the All-Star break with a 53-42 record, occupying the third wild-card spot in the American League playoff field.

“We got a lot of young guys, man, that love to play,” Duran said. “We play hard every game. We get the ball back, we put pressure on defense, we stay together and we have each other’s backs. I know we get beat up sometimes, but the way we come back and fight is a huge thing. It’s awesome for a young team.”

The Red Sox are still searching for a national identity. Their best player, Rafael Devers, has been keeping a low profile and skipped the All-Star Game to rest a sore shoulder. The most identifiable Red Sox figure in the American League dugout Tuesday was David Ortiz, the retired slugger who works for Fox.

Ortiz is one of 13 Red Sox players to hit a home run in an All-Star game before Tuesday. That list is filled with Hall of Famers and other famous names.

Duran is now among them. He called his All-Star experience surreal, but he earned it with his first-half performance. Then he cemented his new status with the swing of the night.

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

(Top photo by Jarren Duran: Maddie Malhotra / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)