America’s Game- America’s Greatest Venue

 

His line of thinking made perfect logical and economical sense. Currently playing its home games in Major League Baseball’s smallest and oldest venue, Boston Red Sox owner John Harrington and his team needed a new stadium. And they needed it now.

 

It was 1992, the year that the division rival Toronto Blue Jays attracted over four million fans to its neon-lit, five-decked Sky Dome. There was also a new yard coming in Baltimore – Camden Yards – that would incorporate all the ambiance of the dysfunctional, disappearing old parks while offering greater seating capacities and a cache of revenue-producing skyboxes.

 

Harrington was sold. Change had to be made. Fenway Park was obsolete and had to go. Its iconic New England status and arterial status for baseball’s lifeblood were in jeopardy because of the bottom line. Harrington cited Baseball Economics 101 – more seats and more luxury boxes equals more cash to compete for the coveted and increasingly expensive talent on the free agent market.

 

So sat this little 12-acre piece of Boston real estate in limbo. Fenway’s odd angles, electric air and endless lore awaited their fate.

 

This was the shrine that the Red Sox christened by winning the World Series four times during the span from when the doors opened on April 20, 1914 until October 1918.

 

This was Ted’s Turf – the left-field home to Hall of Famer Ted Williams, owner of 2,654 hits (521 of them homers), six batting titles and 18 all-star game appearances. This was where the Splendid Splinter completed his historic 1941 season with a .406 batting average – the last .400 season in MLB history – and culminated his career with a home run in his final at bat in 1960. Williams was also responsible for one of Fenway’s many modifications over the years. Upon his arrival in Boston, the bullpens were moved from foul territory to beyond the right field wall, giving the lefty a porch 23 feet closer to home plate to take aim at.

 

This was where Carlton Fisk waved and willed his Game 6 shot off of the left field foul poll, allowing the Sox to breathe another day in the 1975 Series against the Cincinnati Reds. His blast was significant not only for Red Sox nation, but the entire nation. Fenway was piped into millions of homes as NBC broadcast the most watched World Series to date. America sat captivated as Fisk coaxed and motioned his drive into fair territory, a moment many in sports broadcast media credit as the birth of the “reaction shot”.

 

And this was to be the diamond where perhaps the greatest magic was to come. Down three games to none to the hated New York Yankees in the 2006 American League Championship Series, the Red Sox rocked Fenway by rallying for a Game 4 victory and unprecedented series comeback. Playing 26 innings in 27 hours, Boston also took Game 5 to get back to New York and wrap things up.

“These weren’t baseball games; these were life experiences,” recalled Dave Roberts, the man many will remember for stealing the base that started the greatest comeback in baseball history. “I’ll remember them forever.”

 

The result: a World Series Championship that ended 86 years of cursed agony. Perhaps the only travesty was that Boston hoisted that trophy – and another in 2007 – on the road, away from its Fenway faithful.

 

So bring on the wrecking ball. Harrington – we’ll note that eventually sold his Red Sox for a record $700 million in 2001 – was efficient in his plot to replace Fenway Park. Before word was really out, Harrington played upon city officials that he knew wouldn’t foot the bill for a new downtown stadium. He threatened possible moves to Fort Point Sound in South Boston and to suburbs further outlying.

 

Then came his mistake.

 

Harrington commissioned a study that concluded Fenway was economically unfeasible due to its small seating capacity, lack of luxury boxes and premium seating, and the large price tag it would take to bring the park’s structure and amenities up to current standards via a renovation. Taking this information to the public with the idea that a more competitive team would be embraced, Harrington met the fierce outcries of his opposition.

 

“Can you imagine what Bostonians would do if the Sox tried to tear down Fenway without public consensus?” Jay Fitzgerald wrote in The Boston Business Journal. “You know someone would shoot a hand-held, anti-tank missile at the first bulldozer that approached Fenway.”

 

No missiles were fired, but opposition was swift. Save Fenway Park! was created as a sort of quasi-PAC to coordinate efforts against moving the Sox out of Fenway. Noted architect Charles Hagenah was summoned to plan a renovation of the park. Hagenah’s staged proposal was ultimately adopted and will run through its completion in 2012.

 

Sensing demise, Harrington threw out an idea for a “New Fenway” that would reprise many of the old yard’s nuisances while adding luxury suites, fan entertainment and extra decks of seating down the lines. He even offered to pay for it (if the city financed parking garages and infrastructure improvements).

 

“Let me get this straight,” scoffed Rick Reilly in his Sports Illustrated column. “We’re going to bulldoze vintage ballparks like Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park to put up fake vintage ballparks.”

 

The movement died. Some years later, a study by the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office found Fenway the fourth most profitable stadium in the bigs. Citing “honeymoon periods” at recently-constructed new parks that cause revenues to plummet 3-4 years after opening day, the study lauded Fenway for its interminable appeal.

 

Perhaps Reilly described it right in one word – vintage. Fenway Park’s allure goes past even baseball significance. One of just two early 20^th century ballparks that remain (Wrigley Field is the other), Fenway appeals to history and architecture buffs as well.

 

“Of civic buildings in our country, none is rarer,” said Howard Decker, Chief Curator of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. “Fenway is one, with all its crazy imperfections, in spite of its neglect, even in the face of its seeming antique obsolescence, is absolutely perfect.”

 

Perfection came through evolution. In 1933, Fenway Park underwent its first – and arguably most significant – round of renovations. The capacity was increased by over 15,000 as several rows of rotten wood bleachers in the grandstand became chairback seats. It was then that the park was painted its familiar green color. Speaking of green, the trademark “Green Monster”, a 37-foot wall that towers over left field and features the only hand-operated score board in the Majors, was built at the time. It replaced a 10-foot incline dubbed “Duffy’s Cliff” and sits just 310 feet from home plate down the third-base line.

 

Lights came in 1947 and the electronic scoreboard over the center field bleachers was installed in 1976. Glass enclosed press seating and premium seating opened in 1988.

 

Other than the addition of seating on top of the “Green Monster”, the current renovation package is less tangible. Updates to the park’s structure, replacement of water lines and irrigation and facelifts of concourses dot projects completed in the recent past and slated for the near future. In 2002, workers installing a new sound system replaced a giant speaker in the outfield that the Red Sox originally purchased from an Eric Clapton tour. New seats are being squeezed in here and there – the capacity is planned to be 39,968 by the completion of the upgrades in 2012, the year Fenway will also celebrate its 100^th birthday.

 

Much remains the same. Brick facades on famous Yawkey Way have never been altered. The average seat in Fenway is and has always been the closest to the field in any MLB park. It is legend that “Fenway franks” have always tasted the same. The Red Sox have resisted the urge to add the family diversions; upscale dining and arcade side shows many other parks feature.

 

“There’s no sushi. No quesadillas. No lattes,” longtime reliever Todd Jones commented about his stint playing with the Sox at Fenway. “It’s all hot dogs, beer, sausages. That’s what it’s all about. I’m really glad I had a chance to experience something like that.”

 

An experience that everyone should have was almost taken by former owner Harrington, a man vilified in Boston. (Not only did he propose closing Fenway, he disbursed revered street vendors around the park selling dogs and sausages.) Yankee Stadium is closing after this season and Wrigley Field is considering selling its naming rights, making Fenway the top destination on this list of the most-hallowed and endangered places.

 

When Save Fenway Park! sprung into action, thousands of support letters and notes flooded in from around the city and the nation. It still displays the following note on its website:

 

 

Greg Geddes, Binghamton, NY