Player notes: Runnels was a two-time American League batting champion with the Red Sox (1960, 1962). He just missed on another title in 1958, when he was beaten out by teammate Ted Williams on the final day of the season. Altogether he batted over .300 six times: once with the Senators and five times with the Red Sox.

Runnels broke in with the Senators as a shortstop, but moved to second base in 1955, and played mostly second or first base from then on out. Bill James rates him as a second baseman in his New Historical Baseball Abstract. By all accounts he was a decent fielder at short and second, so it's not clear why the Red Sox would have switched him to first base, where his singles-hitting style made him less of a fit at a position where power is expected. He actually ended up playing more games at first base than at any other position.

Runnels, a native Texan, ended his career with the Houston Colt .45s (forerunners of the Astros). He was eventually elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and died of a stroke in Pasadena, Texas in May, 1991.