Dan Shaughnessy - At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation

INTRODUCTION
TANGLED UP IN GREEN

CHAPTER ONE
THE BALLPARK

CHAPTER TWO
RED SOX NATION

CHAPTER THREE
OCTOBER IS THE CRUELEST MONTH

CHAPTER FOUR
FOILED! CURSES AGAIN

CHAPTER FIVE
CITIZENS OF RED SOX NATION

CHAPTER SIX
THE KNIGHTS OF THE KEYBOARD

CHAPTER SEVEN
THE JIMMY FUND

CHAPTER EIGHT
SAVE FENWAY

As you read this, there are baseball fans sitting in wide, cushy seats, watching a game in a spacious, state-of-the-art stadium with sprawling parking lots, polished bathrooms, and international food courts. Those spoiled fans might even be sitting in a climate-controlled dome, enjoying all the comforts of the twentieth century. Their hometown ballpark, like most new parks today, is a palace of awakening desire. Going to the game is like going to a new shopping mall.

Not me. Im sitting in the press box, high atop Fenway Park. From my second-row seat, I can look beyond Fenways outfield walls and see the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Bunker Hill Monument, the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House, the old and new Hancock towers, and the Christian Science Centers Mother Church. I can see the former Hotel Shelton, where Eugene ONeill died (its now a Boston University dorm). I can see a piece of Bunker Hill Community College, where Sacco and Vanzetti were executed when it was Charlestown State Prison. I can see Massachusetts Avenue, where Martin Luther King Jr. lived when he studied at the BU Divinity School. And I can see all the green splendor of Fenway Park.

To get here, I have battled bad weather, bad roads, and cowboy drivers. I have paid $10 for the privilege of having my car blocked in a tiny parking lot. I have walked on pigeon dung and smelled propane-heated sausages on the frost-heaved sidewalks. I have climbed the ten long ramps to the press box that sits atop the 600 Club in ancient Fenway. I feel as if I am in my dusty old den, reading a favorite book in my dads overstuffed, dog-eared chair.

Folks at General Motors several years back introduced a campaign to sell Oldsmobiles. The slogan was, This is not your fathers Oldsmobile.

The charm of Fenway is that it is your fathers ballpark.

The rest of baseball is George Jetson. Boston is Miss Havisham.

Fenway Park is where young Rose Fitzgerald sat in the box seats while her father, Mayor John Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, threw out the first ball before a 1912 World Series game. Its where Babe Ruth pitched the Sox to a World Championship in 1918. Its where Tom Yawkey and his young bride, Jean, would sit on the outfield grass and have a picnic while listening to Sox road games on the radio. This is where Ted Williams homered in his final at bat in the big leagues, Curt Gowdy making the call, Brooks Robinson at third, John Updike in the grandstand. This is where Dick Stuart chugged around the bases for an inside-the-park homer after his fly ball clanged off the head of Cleveland outfielder Vic Davillio. This is where Jim Lonborg laid down the bunt in the bottom of the sixth to ignite the rally that won the 1967 American League pennant. This is where organist John Kiley played the Hallelujah Chorus after Carlton Fisk clanged one off the foul pole. This is where Yaz leaned against The Wall as Bucky Dents pop fly feathered into the netting atop the Wall. This is where fuzzy-cheeked Roger Clemens struck out twenty on a cold April night in 1986. This is where Tom Brunansky made a sliding catch near the right-field foul pole, clinching the 1990 American League East flag. This is where the triangular eye of the Citgo sign looks down on fans like the eyes of Dr. Eckelberg in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. This is where things happened. We take comfort in that.

These are perilous days for old Fenway. The late Boston Garden, built in 1928, was closed in 1995 and is scheduled to be disassembled in 1996. Ever the home of the Celtics and Bruins, the Garden was replaced by a building named after a Rhode Island bank. Today, Boston basketball and hockey fans see their games at the FleetCenter, where youre never more than a few feet from an ATM. The Celtics, Bruins, and their fans love Bostons new indoor sports palace. Meanwhile, the current Red Sox ownership talks about structural problems, pouring good money after bad, and the inevitability of a new baseball park for Boston. The wrecking ball may soon dangle over Fenways green walls. Memories of the ballpark may someday be all weve got. I have a hard time being rational about any of this. I say Save the Whales, Save Our Cities, and Save Fenway Park.

This is a book about the unique experience of being a Red Sox fan and attending baseball games at Fenway. Hopefully it will serve as a companion for the long-suffering legion of Sox watchers; an almanac for Boston baseball fans. Warning, readers: Prepare to hear the dreaded first-person pronoun from time to time in this book. At Fenway is a decidedly personal story.

I was born in Groton, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1953, the year the Braves left for Milwaukee and Boston became a one-team town. The Red Sox in 53 were managed by Lou Boudreau (typical Sox: Boudreau is the man who beat Boston in the 48 play-off game, and the Red Sox have a habit of acquiring former Sox-killers just when their careers are on the downside). Boudreaus 53 edition went 8484, good for fourth place, a tidy sixteen games behind the New York Yankees. Ted Williams spent most of the 53 season flying planes in Korea and played only thirty-seven games for the Sox.