Shortly before 10:45AM, they began emerging from Fenway Park, donning Red Sox caps, signs in hand expressing their thanks to the longest serving mayor in Boston history.
Tim Zue, Red Sox Vice President of Business Development, stood among the 150 to 200 front office Red Sox employees on Yawkey Way. Zue said Menino was an enormous fan of the Sox.
“Came to Fenway Park quite often I think for 30 years he had season tickets,” he said. “As the procession comes by we just— if he’s watching above we want him to know that we thank him.”
There is perhaps no place in Boston that says Boston like Fenway. And as Larry Cancro, Senior VP of Fenway Affairs noted, it was during Menino’s tenure that the venerable old ballpark’s run almost came to an end.
“When the new ownership took over and wanted to try and see whether Fenway Park could be saved he was a person who really believed in that endeavor,” Cancro said.
Cancro said Menino’s vision played an integral role in not just preserving Fenway park, but also transforming this neighborhood.
“His savvy and his patience really paid off in revitalizing Fenway Park but also revitalizing this entire neighborhood and making it a better place to visit, a better place to live a better place to work,” he said.
And it wasn’t just Red Sox brass lining Yawkey Way. Ellen Berlin works at Dana Farber. While the funeral procession passed by the cancer institute, she wanted to be at Fenway to pay her final respects.
“He loves the Red Sox too. He came to the games a lot and in the end he had the cane that was the bat and it just seemed it would feel good to be with Red Sox nation as well on this sad day,” she said.
Then there were former staffers. Like Hannah Clark, whose first job out of college was at City Hall during Menino’s final term. Her first meeting with the mayor came on Red Sox open day, when Menino was unexpectedly at his desk.
“He was really personable and he cared so much about the city and that was really apparent in your one-on one interactions with him,” she said.
Tom Jennings, donning a Red Sox jacket and cap said there was no better place than Fenway to say his goodbyes.
“This is what he liked the most. Matter of fact I seen him here at a game one time,” he said.
What brought Jennings all the way from Salem today was a chance meeting he had with Menino outside Jordan Marsh decades ago, when Menino was a city councilor and Jennings was living a different life than he is today.
“I talked to him for a while. I was drinking during the time so ah, he told me 'ya know, you need to slow up’ and I stopped about two years after that,” he said.
In the days since Menino’s passing, the tributes have flooded in from all corners: Eloquent eulogies, funny stories, poignant interactions. Here on this corner of Yawkey Way, it could hardly be expressed better than by Bostonian Cynthia Butler.
“Huge Red Sox fan and he was a huge Red Sox fan. Just seems fitting. Winners. Both of them.”
