She opened on April 20, 1912 in the wake of Titanic's historic sinking, to a crowd of only 24,000. That first game was a match between the Boston Speed Boys and a New York team called the Highlanders. These two teams would later be renamed the Red Sox and the Yankees. The stadium was considered large in those days, with a seating capacity of 35,000. Left field was 320 feet from home plate, a distance thought to be quite considerable in its day.

Small, even intimate, Fenway still somehow offers the most panoramic views in baseball.

In 1947 the park got lights, a fancy makeover, and the giant left field wall that had been covered with advertising became a hulking mass known as The Big Green Monster. The 1940s were golden years for the Sox and Fenway. A skinny lad from the west coast wandered onto her blue grass in 1939. If Yankee Stadium was "the house that Ruth built," Ted Williams might well get an architectural footnote for Fenway Park. He had help from the likes of Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Dom DiMaggio, who had a brother named Joe who didn't play half bad, either. In 1940 the management added bullpens making the home-run territory 23 feet closer to homeplate. The area was dubbed "Williamsburg." And visitors who wonder why the right field bleachers have one brilliant red seat nestled among the rows of navy need only ask a local fan. It marks the spot, 502 feet from home plate, where Ted Williams planted an infamous home run.

Ted Williams knocked an infamous dinger 502 feet from home plate to this spot in right field.

Fenway is not just the place the Red Sox call home. It is a shining jewel, sometimes called the Emerald in Baseball's diamond crown, that sparkles as a beacon to fans of the nostalgic ilk. The playing surface is Merion Bluegrass and New England Sand in an era of astroturf. The stands are metal and wood. It is a bastion of all that is pure and good in the sport: manual scoreboards, intimate seating, quirky nuances of weather and shape and personality.

Arial view of Fenway and the Boston skyline beyond.

There are those who are hailing the end, and those who are battling it. Locals say that no matter what happens the park will always be preserved, if only as a museum to an era gone by. Purists struggle to save her, but her prospects look dim. And perhaps the battle to save Fenway goes deeper for Bostonian dreamers. Perhaps they know what all of us sense, deep down: that she represents something more precious than seating capacity and corporate sponsorship. She represents innocence and simplicity. She conjures up images of freckle faced kids sitting "this close" to the dugout.

View from center field. The skyboxes and press box added in 1989 seem ancient in the new millennium.

Last year Boston film crews captured the crux of it. During a game in which he was not pitching Red Sox star Pedro Martinez busied himself by playing a game of roly-ball over the dugout roof with two delighted young fans. He sat along the wooden benches wearing a Yoda mask in comical imitation of manager Jimmy Williams. Fenway is one of the last places a fan can get a foul ball signed without paying a fee to their favorite player.

The dugout.

Baseball fans aren't afraid of losing a park. Purists aren't sentimental about Pesky's pole or the Citgo sign. We love these things, they are memories, signposts in time. What we fear is the loss of the game as it SHOULD be: played for the love of the sport and the thrill of the crowd, played for fans who still believe in the small gods of the diamond-- imperfect and mortal but magic just the same. Some still believe in that magic. They believe that every child who ever watched that tiny sphere of white soar high over a fence in a hometown field has a chance to prance on bluegrass and sand before a roaring crowd that cheers for them in wooden seats close enough to touch. Fenway conjures up images of baseball that are purer than strikes and gambling scandals. It reminds us of a better time. It makes us want to be better people.

Young fans lay on the sidewalk, slipping pads of paper under the fence, where Nomar Garciaparra picks them up to sign a quick autograph before heading for the locker room.

 

While parks across the country are adding gourmet food courts and high tech interactive media, Fenway remains an archaic testament to what was. She creaks and rusts; she does not glimmer. But she shines, with an inner glow and beauty like any great old dame of royalty and elegance. And, like monarchies and dime stores, her era may well have passed. For now, in Boston, she still reigns, however tenuous her rule. Here a kid can slip a piece of paper under a fence and get an autograph. Here a fan can reach out and shake the hand of a player from his or her seat. Here the hotdogs are just hot dogs and the beer is domestic. Here she sits on an aging, decrepit throne: a queen past her prime, but a queen none the less. God save her.

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