The Pride of the Hub

An unusual external view of Fenway: from behind the bleachers, Jul-1998.

Most of the seating bowl, from the edge of the right-field grandstand, Jun-2002.

The 37-foot-high “Green Monster”, complete with manual scoreboard and Citgo sign beyond the screen, Sep-1996.

• Location: Brookline Avenue at Yawkey Way, southwest of Kenmore Square, Boston, Mass.
• Opened: 1912 (renovated 1934; incremental improvements since)
• Home team: Boston Red Sox, American League (1912-present)
• Capacity: 33,871

Rating: 5 baseballs

It’s located in a part of Boston that makes it inconvenient for all but mass transit (and thank goodness for mass transit). The streets are narrow, and parking is relatively scarce and expensive. And the park itself still contains a lot of dark corridors, narrow tread between seating rows, and old wooden seats. The Red Sox promote the park as “Friendly Fenway”, because the only way to cope in these cramped quarters is to be friendly.

The front of the park, on Yawkey Way.

All this, however, is part of the charm of this band box just across the Massachusetts Turnpike from Kenmore Square (there used to be a Sears, Roebuck store on Kenmore Square -- yes, that’s how their appliance line got its name). Aside from some sky boxes patched onto the roof behind the plate, the experience of attending a game at Fenway today is little changed from 1912.

There’s always the 37-foot wall in left field, a manual scoreboard tucked into its base, which has affectionately been called the “Green Monster” ever since the advertising signs were painted over in 1947. There’s the quirky shape of the wall in center, where not only does the fence line take on a strange dimension, but so does the home-run line. There’s the low porch in right-center. There’s “Pesky’s pole” in right field, where an extremely short right-field line shoots out to a deep alley in no time flat. A ball landing fair along that fence can roll forever, as Nomar Garciaparra proved when he dropped one there and beat out an inside-the-park home run when I was in attendance 26-Jul-1998.

There are ghosts here, too. The joy of Carlton Fisk’s ball down the line that just stayed fair in 1975, tempered by the one Bucky Dent hit into the screen in 1978. The home run Ted Williams hit on the final swing of his career in 1960. And the heartbreak that’s lingered for eight decades, since Harry Frazee sold his 29-homer man, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees after the 1919 season.

It’s all there, on a visit to this historic park. Tickets are the most expensive around, thanks to its small capacity (they even get $18 in 2002 for standing room tickets, sold on game day), but they’re worth every penny.

Now they’re talking about building a park with identical dimensions, including the Green Monster, but with larger seating capacity and more accommodating to fans and players alike, right across the street. They say it’ll look like Fenway, and it’ll play like Fenway.

But it won’t be Fenway.

If you’re a baseball fan, and you haven’t made it to the Hub to see this marvel, I urge you: Do whatever you can to get there before it meets the wrecking ball. You won’t be disappointed.