Best Baseball Stadiums-Fenway Park
Boston's Architecural Gem is the Last of a Dying Breed of Stadiums
May 27, 2007
The History of Fenway Park
This is the oldest remaining park in Major League Baseball. It is a cozy venue located at the confluence of Landsdowne Street, Yawkey Way, Brookline Avenue and Ipswitch Street in Boston proper. It currently seats 38,805 fans, but that number has changed drastically throughout the park's 95-year history. When it was first constructed in 1912, the entire bill from the John McGlaughlin Construction Company was only $650,000.
Immediate Success after Fenway Park Was Opened
The park opened for business on April 20, 1912. For the first seven years of its existence, this stadium played host to some of the greatest Red Sox teams in history. The team won the World Series over the New York Giants in 1912. The Sox repeated the feat by downing the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 Series.
In 1916, a 21-year old lefthander led the Sox to the American League Pennant and then served as their ace during the World Series. In Game 2, the youngster pitched 14 innings, surrendered just one run and won his first ever World Series game. The team won the Series over the Brooklyn Robbins 4 games to 1. Their star pitcher? His name was Babe Ruth.
The Red Sox would win one more Series that decade by crushing the Chicago Cubs, 4 games to 2, in the 1918 Fall Classic. Ruth pitched two games, won both, and ran his career World Series record to 3-0 with a 0.87 ERA. The next year the Red Sox sold Ruth to the New York Yankees.
Fenway Park's Architectural Oddities and Design Quirks
The Green Monster. Fenway's most famous feature is the Green Monster, a 37 foot-high, 220 foot long wall in left field. The height of the Green Monster is offset by its close proximity to home plate; the wall is just 310 feet from home plate down the left field line. Accordingly, right-handed hitters prone to hitting fly balls to left field turn into dangerous power hitters when playing in Fenway.
Duffy's Cliff: Duffy’s Cliff was a 10-foot-high mound which formed an incline in front of the left field wall from 1912 to 1933, extending from the left-field foul pole to the flag pole in center; it was named after the Red Sox’s Duffy Lewis, the acknowledged master of defensive play on the cliff. The cliff was greatly reduced; but not completely eliminated, before the 1934 season.
The Manual Scorboard: Operated by a man inside the Green Monster using green and white painted wooden blocks for numbers, this is the last such manual scoreboard left in Major League baseball.
Pesky's Foul Pole: The right field foul pole is just 295 feet from home plate. The pole got its baseball nickname when Sox pitcher Mel Parnell noticed that the diminutive Johnny Pesky, who hit just 17 home runs in his career, had smacked almost half of those by having fly balls curl around the foul pole and land about 296 feet from home plate.
The Quest to Find Addional Seating
Here are just some of the new seats that have been added in the past 25 years to bring Fenway's capacity from 33,000 to 38,000.
The 406 Club. In 1983, the team added private suites that sat just over 1,000 fans on top of the bleachers behind home plate. In 1988 these suites were expanded by another 610 seats. A 2002 renovation added more than 900 more seats and named the suites the 406 Club in honor of Ted Williams, whose .406 batting average in 1941 was the last time anyone hit .400 in the Major Leagues.
The Monster Seats: Between the 2002 and 2003 seasons, team ownership added 274 seats atop the Green Monster. These seats, which are essentially outfield "nose-bleeders" have been a huge hit with fans, and command some of the highest prices in the whole park.
Famous Moments at Fenway
Fenway Park has seen its share of legendary baseball moments. Here are some of the best.
1946: In the All-Star Game, which was played at Fenway that year, Ted Williams hit two homers, including one off Rip Sewell's famous eephus pitch.
1975: In the bottom of the 12th inning of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, Carlton Fisk hit a solo home run off the left field foul pole, to give the Sox a Game 6 victory.
1978: In a one game playoff between the Sox and the Yankees to determine the AL East winner (the teams finished with identical 99-63 records during the regular season), light-hitting Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent hit a three-run home run over the Green Monster to put the Yanks up for good and send them into the playoffs.
1999: At the 1999 All-Star game, Major League Baseball honored the recently named All Century Team with a pre-game ceremony on the field. In a very emotional moment, an aging and infirm Ted Williams was driven to the center of the field on a golf cart to be with his All Century teammates. A few moments earlier, Pete Rose, who is banned from attending baseball games, was allowed onto the field as the team's second baseman. Rose received the longest and loudest ovation of any honoree, including Williams. It was quite a moment.
With Yankee Stadium's life coming to an end after the 2008 season, only Fenway and Wrigley Field will remain of the original classic ballparks. Most baseball fans hope that Boston can keep the Park going; it is that beautiful and that historic.
