Being at Fenway Park gave Royals manager Ned Yost a chance, when prompted by reporters, to re-live his crucial home run for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982. It was a three-run, ninth-inning shot over the Green Monster that gave the Brew Crew a 6-3 win over the Red Sox in the waning days of their championship run.

“The funny thing about it, it was like a college atmosphere. The players met me halfway (to the plate) because they knew how big it was, too,” Yost recalled..

There was more to the story.

“I put on the shin guards and the pitcher came over and grabbed me by the shirt and yelled, ‘Hey! We’ve got three more outs to go. Now get your head in the game!’ I said, ‘All right, all right,’ ” Yost said, sitting on the same bench in the visitors’ dugout..

Yost paused for the kicker.

“The pitcher was Bob McClure.”

McClure, of course, is now Yost’s pitching coach with the Royals.

That Yost tale and others were included in a lengthy feature story posted on royals.com Tuesday.

Yost and the Brewers went on to win the division title that weekend at Baltimore and, of course, wound up in the 1982 World Series which they lost to the Cardinals. Yost, as the backup catcher, got just one at-bat in the Fall Classic.

“I walked,” Yost said. “I never walked and I got up against John Stuper and I said, ‘This is my one World Series appearance and I’m going deep.’ I was swinging out of my rear end, trying to hit a home run and the guy ended up walking me.”

One home run that entire year was all that Yost would get but it was a big one.

–Dick Kaegel