Stories about FENWAY PARK.

QUOTE from Thomas Fuller: "Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse."

I LEARNED a lot about the history of Fenway park in Boston. We returned from Boston on Thursday, July 14. The higlight for me was taking a tour of Fenway Park. On Monday we went to Fenway and went to the Red Sox souvenir store right across the street from the Green Monster. There we got tickets for a tour of Fenway. Our guide was a 20-25 year old girl who led us across the street to a left field entry gate. We walked up 8-9 ramps to the the the press box area right above the Green Wall. She sat all 70 of us down in the pressbox seats and gave a talk on the history of Fenway and the Red Sox.

Fenway was built in 1912 and is the oldest baseball stadiium in the major leagues (Wrigley is second oldest -built in 1916). It got the name Fenway because that was the name of the neighborhood in which it was built. Before Fenway was built the Sox played about a mile away in a stadium with a seating capacity of 8,000. The Sox won the first World Series in 1903. They went on to win five of the first twelve World Series. Fenway was built to accommadate more fans.

Then all hell broke loose when the owner of the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918 for $100,000. He also sold fifteen more of his players for a total of $25,000. So he gutted the team in order to raise money to finance a broadway show he was promoting. This is what is known as stupidity. The Red Sox were a joke until the 1940s. In 1933 Tom Yawkey bought the Red Sox and turned them into a legitimate big league team once again. By the late 1930s he acquired Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr amd Dominic DiMaggio. These four resurrected the Red Sox and they played in the World Series in 1946. Yawkey is responsible for building the Green Monster. According to our tour guide people could sit across the street from  left field and watch the game for nothing. Yawkey put an end to that by building the Green Monster in the 1930s.

The Red Sox fans have set a major league record for having sold out every game since May 23, 2003. On March 30, 2011 they had had 631 sellouts , a major league record by far. We inquired about going to a Sox game but were told we'd have to buy scalpers and we'd pay from $100 to $200 each. We didn't go. Plus there aren't any parking spaces there so I don't know where the fans park. There is a small one behind the Green Monster that probably holds 40-50 cars. People who park there have beeb known to go home with smashed car windows when somebody hits one over the Monster.

The rest of the tour we walked around the top deck to center field and right field. Then the guide took us through the Red Sox Hall of Fame and walked us by the expensive suites where the money boys get to enjoy the game with their own food and bar and air conditioning. They can sit inside or outside. We didn't get on the field or the locker rooms.

When I see the Red Sox on TV from now on I will have a different persepctive on things. It will quite interesting to see them at Fenway.

My HUMOR for today.

When sitting in the reporters area the guide asked us what teams we cheered for. People said Toronto, Cubs, Tampa Bay, Indians, etc. Then she asked if there were any Ynakee fans. One older guy raised his hand. Then the guide said, "We have a Yankee fan with us today so for the rest of the tour I will talk real slow and use small words so he can understand." I kind of felt sorry for the guy but then she covered it up by saying we are all baseball fans and we're just having a little fun. There is no doubt about it, the Yankees and Red Sox DO NOT LIKE EACH OTHER.