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Fenway at 100: A Ballpark's History of Change

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:02 PM +0000

As with any centenarian, people talk about Fenway Park with respect.

“To come out here, it really is wonderful,” says Red Sox historian Dick Bresciani.

He says anyone’s first visit to the home of the Red Sox is one to remember.

“The first time into Fenway, so many fans have walked up the ramp right over there, or right over there,” Bresciani says. “They come in from underneath and they say look at that wall, look at that grass, on a nice day people are amazed.”

Nothing's constant except change

Bresciani, or “Bresh” as he’s known at the ballpark, has been with the Red Sox for 40 years. He’s been a fan for even longer. Bresh says that the unusual nooks and crannies of Fenway — the deep center field triangle, the monstrous left field wall, seats that are close to the action — these hallmarks have not changed since his father took him to Fenway as a boy.

“It’s still basically the same watching a game as your grandfather did,” says Bresciani.

At 100 years old, Fenway feels like the baseball park your grandfather knew as a child. But this is not because it has remained the same. Glenn Stout, author of "Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year," says that what makes Fenway so special is that it has constantly changed.

“That’s one of the reasons that Fenway Park survives today. It has never been preserved under glass like an antique,” Stout says. “[For most of its life] it was seen in a very utilitarian, very functional way, so if it needed to be changed, if it needed to be adapted, they did that.”

More seating and a big green wall

Adaptations to Fenway started as early as the park’s first season. Nearly 12,000 seats were added after the park’s opening in anticipation of the October 1912 World Series, which the Red Sox won.

Changes to the park continued throughout the years, including a complete renovation after a devastating fire in 1934, the addition of lights in 1947 and the complete replacement of the dented tin left field "monster" wall in 1975.

“Beginning in 1967, when the Red Sox made the World Series, and then in '75 when they made the World Series again, that put Fenway in the spotlight,” says Stout. “People suddenly looked at it and saw that it was a classic ballpark, saw that it was unique and different, something special.”

An influence across baseball

At the time, it was popular for teams to build cookie-cutter multipurpose stadiums. “In contrast to those other stadiums, Fenway Park looked great,” says Stout.

Then, in the early '90s, the Baltimore Orioles decided to build a classic ballpark, and they used Fenway as a model.

“The building of Camden Yards sparked a revival in ballpark building and of so-called retro ballparks — ballparks that tried to imitate Fenway Park,” Stout says.

And imitate they did. Just visit Pittsburgh, Cincinnati or San Francisco, and you’ll find a lot of elements in common with Fenway, such as an asymmetrical field, exposed brick and concrete and a view of the city skyline.

Turnabout is fair play, says the ref

But get this: As Fenway approached 100, it looked to its imitators for new ideas.

“A lot of things that current management has done with Fenway Park has been imitating the retro ballparks that were first built to imitate Fenway,” Stout says.

For example, outside Camden Yards is Eutaw Street, directly behind the right field wall, where fans can buy hotdogs, beer, programs and other stuff. Fenway’s version of Eutaw Street: Yawkey Way. “That’s something the retro ballparks did as an innovation and now Fenway has copied that,” Stout says.

Honoring the history and the historian

So a ballpark can be a decade-old, or a century, but what really matters? The fans.

The Red Sox announcer tells the crowd that something special is happening at this game: “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we proudly recognize a member of the Red Sox family who is celebrating his 40th anniversary with the organization. He’s been a part of some of the biggest moments in franchise history, and is an encyclopedia for all things Boston Red Sox.”

On this night, the Sox are paying tribute to Dick Bresciani. Bresh winds up and throws the ball to David Ortiz: a fitting reminder that even after 100 years, the game always starts with the first pitch.

> > READ: More stories of Fenway at 100

The Sounds of Fenway

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:26 PM +0000

July 13, 2012

BOSTON — The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the love it/hate it chorus of "Sweet Caroline": the experience of a Sox home game is as much aural as visual. And some of us will always now associate the Dropkick Murphys with an Irish-dancing, World Series–winning closing pitcher. We go behind the Green Monster to meet the people who make the musical magic happen: DJ TJ Connelly and organist Josh Kantor.

Video: The ZOOMers Sing at Fenway

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:48 PM +0000

June 22, 2012

BOSTON — Today is Kid Nation Day at Fenway, a day where the little Red Sox fans get to hang out at the park and meet the players. Back in 1999, the cast of the WGBH kids program ZOOM got the chance of a lifetime — to perform the national anthem at Fenway. We were curious: where are they now?

The stands were filled with parents and pint-sized Red Sox fans eating Cracker Jacks and wearing baseball caps they’d eventually grow into. The field was filled with baseball greats like Pedro, Nomar and Wally the Green Monster, signing autographs and taking photos. The WGBH Archives has video footage from that day, shot by ZOOM producer Jim Johnston on his home video camera. Alisa, David, Jared, Lynese, Pablo and Zoe are wearing oversized matching jackets with the word ZOOM embroidered on them — and they're barely able to contain their excitement.

Looking back, "it was pretty surreal," Pablo Velez said. "The fact that I was singing the national anthem at Fenway Park was like a dream come true … I’m a huge baseball fan, and I’d never been to Fenway Park, and I got to do it with a group of friends."

So his very first experience at Fenway Park was in the field. "Yeah," Velez said, laughing. "That’s a pretty good way to go, first time around."

Sadly, not all the memories of this ZOOM family are that bright. In 2006, ZOOM cast member Jared Nathan was killed in a car accident. Nathan loved the Red Sox and Fenway Park so much that a friend bought a commemorative brick at the ballpark in his name.

Zoe Costello said she wasn't that nervous. "It's kind of hard to believe as I say that because I don’t have a singing voice for sure, but it was just too awesome to be nervous, if that makes any sense," she said. "I just remember sort of being in awe and standing there and looking at how green it was and how colorful it was, and there was such a warm reception of us being there."

To this day, it's one of her most magical experiences, she said. "I was just thinking at the time, like this is one of the coolest things that I’ve ever done. And it still is. I mean, I was 10 at the time and now I’m 25. And it still is."

Velez had similar emotions. "Never in my life had I experienced anything like that," he said. "To be at Fenway Park, singing the national anthem, and then to sign autographs, take pictures — it was just so crazy, so unbelievable. But it was a blast … I’ll never forget that moment."

p.s. Where are they? Velez is now working in film production in Los Angeles and Costello is an actress living in New York.

Making Fenway a Place for Everyone

Fri, 25 May 2012 02:07 AM +0000

May 25, 2012

Red Sox fans on a 2012 game day. (Photo: Phillip Martin/WGBH)

BOSTON — Scanning the stands at the start of a game at storied Fenway Park, black and brown faces are noticeably far and very few between; something not lost on Howard Bryant, a black Boston native and a Red Sox fan.

"Well, looking around the stands, you’re not going to see a lot of diversity in terms of African Americans," he said.

But Bryant and others argue that Fenway Park today is still a vast improvement over the color scheme of the not-so-distant past.

Sam Kennedy, the Red Sox chief operating officer, has been with the team for 11 seasons, arriving with the new owners in 2002. He says this most recent management team came with a strong vision they expressed from the start.

"No one sort of came in here with their head buried in the sand saying we didn’t have problems. We clearly did," Kennedy recalls. "The quote that Larry Lucchino had was something to the effect that the organization had an undeniable history of racial intolerance, and that was something for our leader to say that, and to say that on the record was a wakeup call to the region that there is a sort of new leadership group in charge."

Major league baseball owners, starting in 1887, reinforced an unwritten code of strict racial segregation. When Jackie Robinson and other black players were finally invited in April 1947 to try out for the Red Sox, owner Tom Yawkey — according to the late writer David Halberstam — famously asked his staff to get Robinson off the field, using racially derogatory expletives that might get someone fired today.

It took 12 more years — until 1959 — when the Red Sox, being the last major league team to integrate, finally recruited a black player. They got a second string baseman named Pumpsie Green, who was used mainly as a pinch runner.

Not surprisingly, Fenway Park's bleachers reflected this purposeful absence of diversity, says Boston sports historian Richard A. Johnson. "Certainly it was not a large drawing crowd for a black audience. I would think part of that would have been because of the composition of the team and the fact that there were other clubs, noticeably the Cleveland Indians and the White Sox, who had black players of note."

And In the 1970s, the Tom Yawkey’s reputation for bigotry fused with the political climate brought on by court-ordered school bussing. Those fears crept into the stands at Fenway Park.

"We were afraid of Fenway Park as black kids growing up, cause we were always told it was a dangerous place," said Howard Bryant, who is not just a Sox fan, he is also an ESPN sportscaster.

Bryant is the author of "Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston." Sitting in the stands, he recalls the Fenway of 30 years ago.

"As a kid, we never came here. I grew up in Dorchester two miles from here, and mostly because growing up in an all African American community the adults in that community rooted for the Dodgers. They were National League fans because of Jackie Robinson and the Red Sox were really not a part of the everyday life. And that’s due entirely to race; it's due to the fact that the black community did not embrace the Fenway and nor did the red Sox embrace the black community back then," he says.

Watch the 1986 video interview with Tommy Harper on WGBH Open Vault

It wasn’t just in the seating areas that race played such a heavy role in Red Sox culture. Black players, principally Jim Rice and Reggie Smith, also complained about alleged negative treatment. But a civil suit by Tommy Harper seemed to confirm the perception by many around the country that the Red Sox’s reputation for racial intolerance was well deserved.

"Most people think they are racist and they haven’t done anything to discourage that feeling," Harper said in an interview in 1986. In December 1985, Harper was fired from the Boston Red Sox after he complained about the team’s full-throated participation in a whites-only Elks club in Winter Haven, Florida, where they used to practice. Guest passes to the Elks Club were distributed inside the Sox clubhouse to whites only. In 1986, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sided with Harper and ruled that he was wrongly dismissed from the team.

That July, he spoke with WGBH reporter Marcus Jones for the 10 O'Clock News, now part of the WGBH Archives. "I went to them in private, not publicly, and gave them a year to rectify the situation," he said. "Then in the year of '85, when I realized that the situation was not going to change, a reporter approached me. I still did not go to the media. The media approached me and they asked me a direct question: ‘Can you go to the Elks Club?’ and I said 'no.'"

Today, Harper is back with the Red Sox. Along with his friends Carl Yastrzemski and Luis Tiant, Harper is working as a minor-league consultant for the Red Sox and spends most of his time in Pawtucket. He says under the new team ushered in in 2002, the culutre and direction of the Red Sox organization has actually changed dramatically from the past.

Red Sox COO Sam Kennedy agrees. Kennedy says the new owners learned much from their experience with the San Diego Padres.

“It’s important that you recognize that we need to make Fenway as warm, hospitable, as friendly a place for everyone. That’s something I learned in San Diego, ironically being from Boston, but that was how we embraced market in SD, literally broke down barriers, welcomed in fans from Tijuana and south of the border when in SD, opened door to East County and South Bay, and that hadn’t been done before with the prior Padres regime,” Kennedy says.

Meg Vaillancourt, director of the Red Sox Foundation, says the urgency of transforming the Red Sox’s historic racial dynamics was, until recently, quite evident on the streets of Boston. "One thing we noticed in the community, say before 2004 or 2005, if you saw black kids wearing baseball caps, generally they were wearing New York Yankees hats and I think the message from that was very clear: 'Not only are we not Red Sox fans, we are anti-red Sox fans. We are telling you that you aren’t rejecting us. We’re rejecting you!'" she says.

In 1978, in the fifth year of court-ordered bussing, the Yankees and Sox slugged it out for top honors in the American League East, and Yankee caps and jerseys proliferated in black communities. That was no accident.

John Gordon, executive director of Dorchester-Roxbury Little League, says, “We know there was a major rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox. The Yankees stepped up and did a lot of stuff in Boston. Actually, I think it was more because of A-Rod [Alex Rodriguez], because he anticipated coming to Boston at one point in time, but figured he was too hated to lay his hat here. At one point in time, the Yankees were spending a lot of money in this city.”

Little League baseball on a blustery day is underway in Dorchester. Gordon believes the new Red Sox can do more to engender loyalty to the sport that he’s been playing most of his life.

“Fourteen years ago I worked with the Red Sox rookie league. When we had equipment to give to the children and we had money for banquets for things of that sort, the children were more willing to come. And all those children are here today. The ones that didn’t get to experience the whole Fenway experience are not here," he says.

Vaillaincourt says that connecting with black and Latino youth is the key to the long term relationship with communities of color. The Sox have partnered with Yawkey Boys and Girls Club of Boston and the RBI Program to that effect.

"The RBI Program is reviving baseball in the inner city and the impetus is to look at communities of color and to make sure they have access to baseball," Vaillaincourt says.

Noah Jackson is executive director of the First Base Foundation, designed to allow young minority encourage black athletes to play baseball. He says Fenway's challenge is the challenge of the nation in regard to blacks and baseball. Jackson played collegiate baseball at Cal Berkeley and in the minor leagues with the Chicago Cubs.

“My eyes were opened by the experience: Once you got into the collegiate level and the professional level, there were no African American players at all. They just didn’t exist. As much as it’s been a nice gesture with the RBI program, overall I don’t think that it’s increased the amount of minorities playing baseball.

Last season, one study found that only 8.5 percent of major league players were African Americans, which is the third lowest number of professional black baseball athletes in decades. A Scarborough Research study found that only 9 percent of fans who attended a major league game in 2011 were African American. A separate Harris Poll found that only 6 percent of African Americans considered baseball to be their favorite sport.

Charles Steinberg is special advisor to the president/CEO of the Boston Red Sox. He says Fenway executives have their work cut out for them. He says they realize they can't start by saying "buy tickets and come to Fenway." It has to be the result of a major outreach effort and even ticket giveaways; a variation, if you will, of "If we build it, they will come.”

"If we go out into the neighborhoods, into the communities and embrace the ever-changing population of children, and help these children know that the Red Sox are their team, then over time I believe that as they grow up, they’ll come to Fenway. Over time, who wouldn’t want to come to Fenway Park?" he says.

More photos by Phillip Martin

Arthur Griffin's Lens on Fenway

Thu, 24 May 2012 07:44 AM +0000

May 24, 2012

Hear more about the Griffin Museum on Greater Boston

WINCHESTER — Perhaps the best view of the Red Sox these days may be at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester. Small but industrious, the museum honors Red Sox Nation in its latest show.

It’s a Fenway fest at the museum. The park you love, the moments you know and the ones you will now never be able to forget (think nuns). The Griffin celebrates Fenway Park’s 100^th anniversary with a veritable scrapbook.

Paula Tognarelli is the executive director of the Griffin Museum. She said they’ve been anticipating Fenway’s anniversary for some time.

“We’ve been planning this for 2 years. This has been so much fun. We have gone out to a plethora of organizations looking for photographs,” she said.

There are stars and stripes, divine intervention and Fenway itself as the supermodel. It’s a photographic party for the park, according to Tognarelli.

“What it does do is focus on the building itself. People who inhabited the space, people who have visited the space, and I believe it communicates the spirit of a Boston icon,” she said.

Fenway’s 100^th anniversary as a ballpark coincides with the Griffin’s 20^th. It was founded by the late photographer Arthur Griffin, a local legend who snapped pictures from 1929 until his death in 2001 at age 97, said his nephew Peter Griffin, president of Griffin Museum of Photography's board of trustees.

“He worked in an era where there were not a lot of photographers. So he had this wide range of opportunities to shoot for different publications. He shot for Life, Fortune, Saturday Evening Post,” Griffin said.

Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams (Photo: Arthur Griffin)

Arthur Griffin also shot a lot of images for The Boston Globe, where he was among the first to photograph a Red Sox rookie, a very youthful Ted Williams.

“Here’s this handsome 20-year-old kid, splendid sprinter. Tall, skinny, and the images were so good one was actually used on the cover of Sports Illustrated the time of Ted’s death in 2002. And he remained friends with Ted all those years. When my uncle was in his 90s and Ted was approaching 80, Ted would still be referred to as the kid,” Griffin said.

Today the museum balances its preservation of Griffin’s abundant legacy, some 50,000 images, with its mission of elevating photography’s relevance.

“I don’t think the world is aware of how much they’re influenced by the photograph as well,” said Tognarelli. “We’re constantly bombarded by imagery; we haven’t learned to interpret that imagery and that’s what our mission is here at the museum.”

Griffin added, “We’re able to identify up-and-coming photographers who may not be ready for major exhibitions in some of the great museums, but are so incredibly talented that in a few years, you’ll see them in those exhibitions.”

The Griffin is a fantastic museum now featuring artists the world over. But it’s a hidden gem in need of more exposure.

Outside Fenway's Walls: Discussing Baseball and Race on The Takeaway

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:01 PM +0000

May 18, 2012

BOSTON — WGBH welcomed guest host Celeste Headlee from The Takeaway to our studios this morning. For the show's regular broadcast, she shared interviews with Boston locals, including 89.7FM senior reporter Philip Martin, who talked about the story he is reporting for the WGBH News Fenway Fridays series.

Listen to their conversation on the mixed feelings that Massachusettes communities of color have held towards Fenway park and the Red Sox over the decades, from offering their support to the Dodgers and the Yankees, to no love for A-Rod and what Major League Baseball must do to boost its fanbase.

Phillip Martin's full story will air next Friday, May 25th, on Morning Edition. Tune in at 89.7 FM, WGBH Boston.

From The WGBH Vault: Jean Shepherd at Fenway Park

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:02 PM +0000

May 18, 2012

From the WGBH Archives: Jean Shepherd visits Boston in 1969 and shares his grudging admiration for Fenway Park. View the video on OpenVault.

Hear the WGBH Radio Fenway Fridays series on Morning Edition

BOSTON — In the 1960s, New York radio icon and Midwest native Jean Shepherd — the man whose stories inspired the cinematic classic A Christmas Story — made a series of short films around Boston with producer Fred Barzyk.

Barzyk was 22 and working at WGBH, then a little station housed in a former roller skating rink in Cambridge. One Saturday afternoon, idly scanning the radio dial, he came upon Shepherd and fell under his storytelling spell. “He was like this jazz musician using words, taking riffs off his main idea but always returning back again,” Barzyk recalls. “I knew I had to work with him.”

Full of the innocence of youth, Barzyk wrote Shepherd and offered him a half hour of airtime. “All I could pay him was $1 for signing the release,” Barzyk says. Shepherd covered his own airfare and showed up, Barzyk believes, because he wanted to forge his credentials in the academic world and the WGBH stationery used to contact him highlighted the station’s connection to Harvard, MIT, Brandeis and Tufts, among other schools.

The first show, Jean Shepherd, American Humorist, was shot in 1962 on the dock at the Museum of Science with the Charles River as the backdrop. Shepherd told two of his classic stories, including the Ovaltine story, which was later immortalized in A Christmas Story, a holiday favorite based on Shepherd’s semi-autobiographical musings.

When Shepherd finished, the crew applauded. “This wasn’t like our normal shows,” Barzyk says. “We were doing lectures, piano shows and educational courses for distant learners. And here was this guy entertaining us.”

Thus began a collaboration that continued for three decades and included the great WGBH-produced series from the 1970s, Jean Shepherd’s America. The short pieces they produced in the 1960s were called Rear Bumpers after a television show Shepherd had hosted in Cincinnati early in his career.

In October 1969, Shepherd and Barzyk filmed inside an empty Fenway Park. Shepherd’s mood in the piece ranges from dread to admiration. He hurls a ball toward the Green Monster and waits for “one of the most sickening sounds in the entire baseball world,” evoking what it meant to a boy listening on the radio. “This is the fence that has destroyed more dreams … and broken more outfielders’ necks than any other piece of real estate in the history of Western man,” he says.

It all seemed to that boy in the Midwest to be taking place so far away: “It was remote, kind of like a foreign land … like a broadcast from Yugoslavia.” And then he turns back toward the field and the sweep of the park. “What a beautiful place,” Shepherd says. “Take a look at that great green outfield.”

It’s a love poem spoken from the heart of the park by a lifelong Fenway outsider.

Remembering Carl Beane

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:06 PM +0000

May 11, 2012

Photo from the Carl Beane website

BOSTON — Carl Beane, the public announcer for the Boston Red Sox since 2003, died this past Wednesday, experiencing a heart attack that caused him to swerve his car and collide with a tree, then a wall, while driving on Holland Road in Sturbridge, Mass.

When WGBH began our series called "Fenway Fridays", to recognize the significance of baseball history in Boston and the importance of our 100-year old park, the last thing we could imagine was the death of our friend. We all know Carl as that voice of the man behind the microphone of every Red Sox home game since 2003. Carl's voice also rang out in other venues, from the movie "Fever Pitch," to an exhibit at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Carl Beane with WGBH News reporter Ibby Caputo, showing off his World Series rings during an interview in 2010.

When we heard of Carl's accident, everyone at WGBH Radio took a collective pause and shared stories about his enthusiasm, his baseball superstitions and how he stayed young by surrounding himself with the love of sports along the road to Fenway Park.

Listen to this WGBH broadcast of audio moments with Carl. Hear him recall what it was like to begin his first opening game with an unpopular parking announcement, hear about his childhood hope for a World Series ring and finally, listen to Fenway's moment of silence held for Carl this week.

Beane, 59, was a frequent contributor to WGBH Radio's sports coverage, and a friend to WGBH audio engineer Mike Wilkins, who talked with Morning Edition host Bob Seay about Beane's love for sports:

In a 2011 conversation with Emily Rooney, Beane said he began covering the Red Sox as a sports reporter in 1977 and got the unexpected opportunity to call Fenway games after a one-time audition during spring training.

"I'm sitting in the booth about a half an hour before the game, down in Florida, the place is full and I'm thinking to myself, 'What have I just talked myself into?', because my PA experience is zero," Beane said.

"It's kind of spooky talking to you," Rooney said during their interview. "That voice is just so familiar, and here you are talking like a regular person. We don't think of you as a regular person. You are that voice from the booth, like the voice of God."

Carl's family asks that contributions in his memory be donated to the Holland Congregational Church Building Fund in Holland, Mass., or to the American Diabetes Association.

Fenway Means More Than Just Baseball

Sun, 06 May 2012 12:44 PM +0000

May 4, 2012

Boston Bruins pose for a team photo on the ice at Fenway Park in Boston on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009, before the New Years Day's Winter Classic NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

BOSTON — Callie Crossley spoke about Fenway Park's past with Christopher Klein, author of A Die-Hard Sports Fan's Guide to Boston: A Spectator's Handbook. They discussed Fenway from its time as a small, wooden stadium on Huntington Avenue, to its days as a civic gathering space where presidents and pachyderms once convened.

Klein said, "What most people don't realize about Fenway is that it was more than just a baseball stadium to the people who lived here. It really was a civic gathering spot." Both Boston College and Boston Univeristy held football games at Fenway, as did several professional football teams who got their start in Boston. Among other sporting events held at Fenway were the matches of the Boston Beacons, a 1960s Boston soccer team, and the Bruins hosted a Winter Classic match in Fenway against the Philadelphia Flyers in 2009. Even the Harlem Globetrotters have played a few basketball games in Fenway.

Not only did all kinds of sports teams get their moment of fame on Fenway's field. The park has also played host to numerous political rallies and performances. FDR gave his last campaign speech in Fenway in 1944, which was also broadcast on radio, and Fenway has offered music fans concerts over the decades, from John Philip Sousa in 1929 to Bruce Springsteen in 2003 and again this year.

Do you have a memory of attending a civic event at Fenway Park? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Save Your Voice with Singy-Songy Red Sox Cheers

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:09 PM +0000

April 26, 2012

Ms. Zoubareva instructing the Good Morning America film crew at Fenway Park. (Photo: Elena Zoubareva)

Hear an excerpt of Zoubareva's conversation with Callie Crossley.

BOSTON — Elena Zoubareva, opera singer and voice expert, lives in close proximity to Fenway. She says she started offering vocal classes to baseball fans because she just couldn't bear to hear the damage they would do to their voices when cheering in a game.

When Red Sox Nation belts out the tune "Sweet Caroline," Zoubareva recommends fans should especially pay attention to their breathing. It may be hard to imagine when both teams are tied in the 7th inning, but one way to remember to breathe is to imagine sniffing roses. "And keep a tiny smile!" she says. Not even letting loose on the Yankees is condoned when your voice is at stake. "I have seen careers and marriages destroyed by damage done to voices," she said.

Greater Boston Reports from Fenway

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:38 PM +0000

BOSTON — The Greater Boston team visited Fenway on the day of the ballpark's open house. Emily spoke with Boston Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino about what makes Fenway is one of America’s most beloved ballparks.

In addition, Jared Bown shares interviews with Red Sox memorabilia collector Kurt Cerulli, author Glen Stout and ESPN's Howard Bryant about their unique views of the ballpark's history.

(Images courtesy of the Red Sox)

The Poet of Fenway

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:13 PM +0000

April 20, 2012

BOSTON — Fenway's one-of-a-kind charm has inspired no end of literary giants, including such as Stephen King, poet Donald Hall and perhaps most famously John "lyric little bandbox" Updike. Today, Dick Flavin is carrying on the tradition as the official poet laureate of Fenway Park. Sure the pay is low — but that keeps competition for the spot down, he joked. This is his special verse for the Fenway centennial, as heard on The Callie Crossley Show. Listen to the rest of the conversation above.

LONG LIVE FENWAY PARK

Dick Flavin

For a hundred years she's stood here,
Heard cheering, seen our tears.
Through all the good times and the bad
Fenway perseveres.

She's baseball's great crown jewel,
A treasure — this is why.
Look out there on her field, you'll see
The ghosts of games gone by.

There's Babe Ruth standing on the mound,
Ted Williams at the plate.
And someone's great grandfather
Just came in through the gate.

That's Yaz patrolling in left field,
In center, Freddie Lynn;
Cronin's playing shortstop
But Pesky's coming in.

Luis Tiant whirls and spins
And then he lets it go.
There's another leaping catch
By Dom DiMaggio.

Jim Rice lines one off the wall,
Malzone comes in to score.
Pedroia makes a diving stop,
Or is that Bobby Doerr?

Fisk hits one deep into the night.
Will it be foul or fair?
It caroms off the foul pole
And the cheers still fill the air.

Dewey Evans' rifle arm
Just cut a runner down.
There's Tony C, still young and strong,
The toast of his hometown.

Roberts steals another base
Pinch running for Millar.
There's Radatz, Lonborg, Jimmie Foxx,
And Pedro and Nomar.

Look closely. You can see them all.
They come here everyday.
Fenway was and is their home.
It's where her ghosts still play.

And in the dugout by first base,
There sits the current squad.
Someday they will take their place
With all the Fenway gods.

That's why this place is magic,
Why she's made such a mark.
She's one hundred and still going strong.
And long live Fenway Park!

The Day I Rooted for the Red Sox

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:58 AM +0000

"I just don't know where I went wrong," said my dad, the Yankees fan.

Because he did everything right. He took me to my first Yankees game at age 6. From then on, once a year, we drove in to the Bronx; he bought the scorecard and explained how to score a fielder's choice. We threw peanut shells on the ground as he said, "This is one of the only public places where it's OK to throw your peanut shells on the ground." My 10th birthday present was my first night game. When a foul ball came flying in our direction, I ducked and Dad scrambled to get it.

Even when I left New York in 1999, I never thought my allegiance would shift. The family's baseball loyalties had only changed once, under duress, and my great-aunt went to her grave a Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

But I also came to Boston not knowing a thing about Red Sox Nation. The JETER SUCKS T-shirts, the curse, the Babe and the piano in the lake, the vitriol directed New York-wards: a complete surprise. From the catbird Yankees seat, all American League East teams were equal rivals, to be respected (if generally disliked) as fellow historic teams with great ballparks. All my vitriol went to the Atlanta Braves.

At first, it was far more fun to be a New Yorker in Boston than in New York. Allies appeared in unexpected places. An elderly woman approached me at Thornton's, in the shadow of Fenway Park, as I watched the game. I braced myself for a blow from her cane. She leaned over and whispered, "Go Yankees!"

However, by 2001 or so, I was getting uneasy. Rather than tell the story about how I slipped into a random Upper West Side corner bar to see the Yanks win the '96 Series, I talked about how utterly terrible the team was throughout my childhood: We didn't have a decent pitcher between Ron Guidry and Jimmy Key. I took my Yankees cap and altered it with iron-on letters to say: I SUCK.

Visit the fan pages

Then came the summer of 2003. As the race for the AL East heated up, the prickle at the back of my neck sharpened. The Herald back page, the "Reverse the Curse" sign …. The Yankees had so much already. Any New York neurotic can empathize with a sports city with perennial low self-esteem.

"I kind of don't care if the Yankees win this year," I said on the phone with my New York therapist, a Harvard parent. "They've won enough. It would be nice if the Sox finally won."

"Yes," she said, "I've heard the same turncoat feelings expressed by my daughter."

The desire didn't seem like betrayal, though. It seemed like justice.

The playoffs arrived. No problem, right? No matter who wins, I'll be glad, I reasoned. No tension. And yet the tension, it ratcheted.

Game seven. Caught between loyalties, I debated whether or not even to watch the game. But somehow I was standing in the Inman Sq. Bukowski's with a pack of red-clad strangers as Grady walked away, leaving Pedro on the mound. Yankee Stadium cheered. A guy turned to me and said, "When the opposing team's fans cheer your manager's decision, you know it's a really bad idea." The bar screamed. Was that me screaming along? Hats were clutched, pulled off, slammed down.

Over the television, the music played: I want to be a part of it / New York, New York.

I walked out of the door in a haze. I had rooted for the Red Sox. Not just that: I had cheered for them 100 percent. I had despised, hated, abhorred, cursed my childhood team. I felt only complete despair at our — our? — loss.

The morning of October 17 felt like waking up inside someone else's body.

If you think the adjustment was strange for me, just think of my father. Poor Dad. His team won the Series but he lost his daughter to Red Sox Nation.

He tried to laugh it off. Even when I loaned my altered Yankees cap to a friend for a satiric Halloween costume. It stopped being a joke in 2004, of course. Maybe my then-boyfriend shouldn't have left that particular message on my family's answering machine. After I gave my sister my Johnny Damon Sox shirt as a Chanukah present, we tacitly established an Iron Curtain: no contact during a Red Sox/Yankees series, détente called only for such events as a post-season faceoff scheduled inconveniently on my dad's birthday weekend. My dad sighed and sighed again.

But a winter takes the sting out of even the worst collapse, and several winters the worst baseball betrayal. In 2010 I watched an inconveniently scheduled Yankees playoff game with them, on my parents' couch; I didn't cheer for Anyone but the Yankees and they made no reference to the Sox' disappointing season, their final game a loss to — ouch — New York. With the '80s Yankee Stadium gone, a green park bustling with Bronx runners and kids in its place, I can even allow the occasional moment of nostalgia: the Manhattan windshields painted with the number of Sammy Sosa's homers; the guy who heckled José Canseco so loudly — Hey José! When my kid's grown up I want him to be just like you: FAT and STOOPID! — that the hated Angel, waiting at first, turned around and glared. All I have to do is look at the 1988 roster to hear the announcer's voice echo: MIKE – PAG-LI-A-RUUU-LO.

And as for my dad, he is perhaps approaching the acceptance that follows denial, anger and despair. We were on the phone last July. "Your team's looking good," he said, almost casually.

Honey Fitz Threw the First Pitch

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:22 PM +0000

John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, Mayor of Boston, in July 29, 1960. He is the Grandfather of Sen. Ted Kennedy. (AP Photo)

BOSTON — If Senator Ted Kennedy were alive today, he would have been at Fenway Park for the centennial celebration to throw out the first pitch. It would have linked Kennedy and his grandfather, who threw the ceremonial first pitch 100 years ago.

In 1912, before the first game ever played at Fenway Park, that honor went to Boston Mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, father of Rose Kennedy, and a member of the Red Sox fan club called "The Royal Rooters."

This is footage we shot in Senator Kennedy's Washington D.C. office in 2007 for a segment on FETCH with Ruff Ruffman. In this segment, the young FETCHER Sam was challenged by Ruff to learn about the job of a politician. Senator Kennedy was a natural teacher and in this footage, which didn't make it into the final segment, he tells Sam that his family and the Red Sox go way back--all the way to 1912!

All season, WGBH Radio is commemorating Fenway Park's 100th birthday in our segment, "Fenway Friday."

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Fans Flock to Fenway Park Open House

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:12 PM +0000

BOSTON — The day before the official Fenway 100 celebration, the park opened to fans — and to Greater Boston, which recorded a special show on the grounds. Where Larry Lucchino expected 5,000 people ... by midday 20,000 had already arrived. Host Emily Rooney describes the wild scene:

Watch the special episode of Greater Boston on-demand.

And the fans take the field! The scene at the Fenway open house at 10:45 a.m. (Azita Ghahrahmani/WGBH)

How Fenway Became An Icon

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:53 PM +0000

Inside Fenway Park (AP Photo)

BOSTON — Mike Barnicle, an award-winning columnist who was featured in Ken Burn's special Baseball, talked with Emily Rooney yesterday about how the idiosyncratic ball yard became a Boston icon and a living monument to the national pastime.

Barnicle recalled his own first visit to Fenway, and how striking it always is to see the green lawn upon first entering the ballpark. His favorite moments: Dave Morehead's no hitter in 1965, the great 2004 Championship series against the Yankees and the poignant visit by Ted Williams to the park in 1991.

It turns out Yaz Day (October 1, 1983) has special significance in the Rooney household. Not only is the day that Carl Yastrzemski, better known to fans as Yaz, ended his 23-year career as a Red Sox left fielder, it's also the day one of Emily's daughters was born.

Barnicle also praises Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino for averting a historical misfortune in 2001 when he helped to keep Fenway in its present place on the map. Barnicle praises Lucchino,who came to Boston after completing his vision for Camden Yards in Baltimore, as well as his management team, for their commitment to improving Fenway and making it the"the biggest star of all" in baseball history. Barnicle marvels at ways found to keep the ballpark running, despite financial woes, with creative ideas for marketing the park itself to fans.

"The idea that even ten years ago you could have told people 'we're going to have tours of Fenway Park. We're going to charge people for the tours, and we'll actually make a little money,..people would have said [of Fenway as it was then] 'That's never gonna happen"

A free open house celebrating 100 years of Fenway Park takes place today.

Greater Boston Goes Inside Fenway

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:44 PM +0000

April 17, 2012

The Greater Boston news team visited Fenway and interviewed guests about 100 years of baseball in America's oldest ballpark.

Below are clips of Kurt Cerulli, Glen Stout and Howard Bryant describing what it's like to visit on game day. Get the full coverage of Fenway's centennial this Thursday, April 19 at 7:00pm on WGBH2.

Red Sox Fan Kurt Cerulli describes what it's like to visit Fenway Park.

Author Glen Stout talks about what it's like to approach Fenway on game day.

ESPN's Howard Bryant says Fenway has a special energy.

Do you get a special feeling when you visit Fenway Park? Let us know what it's like for you in the comments below.

(Photo credit: Andrew Malone/Flickr)

The Voice of Fenway: Carl Beane

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:19 PM +0000

WGBH is saddened to report on the passing of their friend and colleague Carl Beane. Visit Remembering Carl Beane to hear our special tribute.

April 13, 2012

Photo from the Carl Beane website

BOSTON — As Fenway celebrates 100 years of hosting baseball in Boston, WGBH begins a new season-long feature called "Fenway Friday." Today public address announcer for the Boston Red Sox, Carl Beane, better known as "the voice of Fenway park," joined Morning Edition host Bob Seay to talk about the upcoming celebration.

Beane was sworn to secrecy about what's happening during Fenway's centennial celebration, but he did say many former Red Sox players will be there and he expects to see a lot of familiar faces. "I'm really looking forward to seeing a lot of people who at one time were probably your heros," Bean said. "Even when the Red Sox weren't doing very good, they still had individual players who wore the uniform and were really great players. It will be great to see them again."

Listen for more Fenway Fridays on 89.7FM during the 100th season of baseball at Fenway Park.