Ken Poulsen

Ken Sterling Poulsen (born August 4, 1947 in Van Nuys, California) is a former utility in Major League Baseball who played briefly for the Boston Red Sox during the by|1967 season. Listed at 6' 1", 190 lb., he batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Little is know about this player who made a modest contribution as a member of the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox team.

Poulsen played three years of varsity baseball at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, where he helped his team won the championship of the West Valley League each of those three years (1963-65), being named a first-team all-star in the league and third-team all-star on the All-City team. He was selected by Boston in the third round of the 1965 draft and debuted with the big team on July 3, 1967. Poulsen gained his promotion as a replacement for Dalton Jones, who had to report for two weeks of Army reserve duty at Camp Drum in New York. The departure of Jones reflected a common occurrence during the Vietnam War era.

Poulsen appeared in five games with the Sox, hitting a double in five at-bats for a .200 batting average without runs or RBIs. He also made three fielding appearances at third base (2) and shortstop (1) for a collective .667 fielding percentage (one error in three chances), playing his final game on July 14, 1967.

Following his brief stint in the majors, Poulsen played in the Red Sox and Yankees minor league systems, where he experienced some success as a pitcher in the Carolina League for Kinston in 1971, posting a 10-8 record with a 3.02 ERA, and for West Haven of the Eastern League in 1972, ending 9-8 with a 2.97 ERA.

The 1967 Impossible Dream team has attained mythical status in New England sports history. In 2002, the longtime Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan signaled that: "Very few people in sport can say they helped change the course of a franchise's history, but that is precisely what the 1967 Red Sox did. We can speculate about a lot of things forever. But we know when modern Red Sox history began, and the year is 1967." May have been a personal dream for Poulsen his lone major league base hit on July 14, 1967, but most importantly, though, he played a small role in the success of what became a historic footnote to a season that changed the Boston Red Sox history.

ee also

*1967 Boston Red Sox season
*Boston Red Sox all-time roster
*Cup of coffee

ources

* [http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/poulske01.shtml Baseball Reference]
* [http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/P/Ppoulk101.htm Retrosheet]
* [http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1290&pid=11408 SABR project]