Like a fleck of red paint on a lush green canvas, the commemorative chair draws the eye. Someone is almost always sitting in it, even when just a few patrons are in the bleachers. New fans ask about the red seat, and citizens of Red Sox Nation are happy to relay the Fenway folklore.

Teddy Ballgame’s mighty clout was struck in the summer of 1946, on a windy, sun-splashed Sunday afternoon in the first inning of the second game of a doubleheader against the Tigers.

‘‘Hell, I can tell you everything about that one,’’ Williams said from his Florida home in 1996. ‘‘I hit it off Fred Hutchinson, who was a tough [righty] who changed speeds good.

‘‘He threw me a changeup and I saw it coming. I picked it up fast and I just whaled into it.’’

Indeed. The ball sailed over the head of right fielder Pat Mullin, then carried beyond the visitors’ bullpen and kept on going. And then it crashed down on top of Joseph A. Boucher’s head. More accurately, it landed on Boucher’s straw hat, puncturing the middle of the fashionable skimmer.

Boucher was an Albany construction engineer who kept an apartment on Commonwealth Avenue when he worked in Park Square during the week. He loved baseball and the Red Sox. But sitting more than 30 rows behind the bullpen, he wasn’t expecting to catch any home run balls.

Boucher spoke with the Globe’s Harold Kaese after the game and asked:

‘‘How far away must one sit to be safe in this park? I didn’t even get the ball. They say it bounced a dozen rows higher, but after it hit my head, I was no longer interested. I couldn’t see the ball. Nobody could. The sun was right in our eyes. All we could do was duck. I’m glad I didn’t stand up.’’

Boucher went to the first aid room briefly, where he was treated by a doctor. He returned to watch the Sox complete their sweep of the Tigers.

The next day’s Globe featured a Page One photo of Boucher holding his hat, his finger stuck through the hole. The caption read, ‘‘BULLSEYE! … ’’

Newspaper accounts claimed Williams’s homer traveled 450 feet, but the Red Sox measured the distance in the mid-1980s and arrived at an official distance of 502 feet — one foot farther than the estimate of Manny Ramirez’s lighttower blast in June 2001.

‘‘I got just the right trajectory,’’ said Williams. ‘‘Jeez, it just kept going. In distance, it was probably as long as I ever hit one.’’

Taking batting practice at Fenway in 1996, mighty Mo Vaughn gazed into the horizon, located the red seat, shook his head, and said, ‘‘Man, they keep moving it up higher every year.’’

No.

The left field wall may be moving closer (in 1995 the Green Monster sign was changed to 310 feet from 315) but the red seat is fixed. It just seems farther.

‘‘It’s hard to believe anybody could hit a ball that far,’’ said Vaughn.

The bleachers were replaced with chairback seats in 1977 and ’78. In 1984, Sox owner Haywood Sullivan decided to commemorate Williams’s clout by putting a red chairback in the spot where Boucher sat June 9, 1946.

If you find yourself sitting in Fenway’s Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21, don’t bother to bring a glove. There was only one man who could hit a ball that far, and he’s no longer with us.

This Dan Shaughnessy article originally appeared June 9, 1996; he updated it for this section.