Why Fenway Park Matters

The quick read

Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912, and it is the oldest ballpark still in use in Major League Baseball. The Red Sox won early and often, took the 1918 title, then sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees and went 86 years without another championship. That drought, the Curse of the Bambino, ended in 2004 with the most improbable comeback in the sport’s history, down 0-3 to the Yankees and back to win four straight. Three more titles followed in 2007, 2013, and 2018. Along the way the park housed Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Pedro Martinez, and David Ortiz, and it sits at the center of the deepest rivalry in American sports.

The building itself is the reason much of this reads the way it does. Wedged into a tight city block in 1912, Fenway took on an irregular shape that gave the game the Green Monster, the Triangle, and Pesky’s Pole. The park and the history grew up together.

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The oldest park in baseball

Fenway opened on April 20, 1912, and no older ballpark is still in use anywhere in the majors. The Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders, the club that soon became the Yankees, 7-6 in 11 innings in the first game. The opening barely made the front page: the Titanic had sunk days earlier, and Boston, like the rest of the country, was reading about that.

The park was built into a cramped block in the Fenway neighborhood, and its odd shape is a direct result of fitting a regulation field into the streets around it. The short, tall left-field wall that became the Green Monster, the deep center-field corner known as the Triangle, and the short right-field foul pole all exist because the property lines, not a designer’s bowl, set the boundaries. The quirks fans travel to see were the building’s compromises first.

The 1918 title and the sale of Babe Ruth

The Red Sox were one of the early powers of the American League. They won the World Series in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918, five titles in the franchise’s first two decades, with a young Babe Ruth pitching and hitting his way through the late 1910s.

Then owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season, a deal commonly cited as $125,000 in cash plus a roughly $300,000 loan. The popular story that Frazee sold Ruth to finance the Broadway musical No, No, Nanette is largely a myth: that show did not open until years later. The plain version is enough. Boston let go of the best player in baseball, New York built a dynasty on him, and the Red Sox would not win another title for 86 years.

The Curse of the Bambino

What followed became the longest, most-told heartbreak story in American sports. From 1918 to 2004, 86 years, the Red Sox did not win a World Series, and fans only half-jokingly blamed the “Curse of the Bambino.” The drought was not for lack of getting close. The near-misses became their own canon:

1946: the Red Sox lost Game 7 of the World Series to the Cardinals.
1967: the “Impossible Dream” pennant ended in a Game 7 World Series loss to the Cardinals.
1975: an all-time World Series, decided in Game 7, lost to the Cincinnati Reds.
1978: Bucky Dent’s home run in a one-game tiebreaker sent the Yankees to the postseason instead of Boston.
1986: a ground ball through Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6 helped the Mets come back, and Boston lost Game 7.

Each one deepened the story, and each one is part of why 2004 landed the way it did.

2004: down 0-3 to the Yankees

In the 2004 American League Championship Series the Red Sox fell down 0-3 to the Yankees, the same rival that had haunted them since the Ruth sale. No team in major-league history had ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. Boston won four straight and became the only team in MLB history to do it.

The turn came in Game 4. Down a run in the ninth against Mariano Rivera, the Red Sox sent in Dave Roberts, who stole second base and then scored on a Bill Mueller single to tie the game and force extra innings. Boston won that night and never lost again in the series. The Red Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to end the 86-year wait.

2007, 2013, 2018

Once the drought broke, the titles came in a cluster. The Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in 2007. They beat the Cardinals in six games in 2013, the “Boston Strong” season that ran through a city still reeling from the Boston Marathon bombing that April. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in five in 2018.

That makes nine World Series titles in franchise history: 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018. The first five came before the curse, and the last four came after it broke.

The legends

A handful of players are inseparable from this park, and a fan walking in for the first time will see their names and numbers everywhere.

Ted Williams is the last man to hit .400 in a season, batting .406 in 1941, and he won two Triple Crowns across a career interrupted twice by military service. The statue outside the park and the lone red seat in the right-field bleachers are both his.
Carl Yastrzemski (“Yaz”) played his entire career in Boston, won the 1967 Triple Crown and AL MVP, collected more than 3,000 hits, and went into the Hall of Fame in 1989.
Pedro Martinez was the dominant ace of the late-1990s and 2000s Red Sox and a Hall of Famer.
David Ortiz (“Big Papi”) was at the center of the 2004, 2007, and 2013 titles, and his No. 34 is retired.

The Yankees rivalry

Red Sox-Yankees is the spine of this whole story. It started with the Ruth sale, ran through Bucky Dent in 1978 and the 2003 ALCS, and reached its peak with the 2004 comeback. It is the defining rivalry in American sports, and still the loudest series on Boston’s calendar every year. The history spoke and the when-to-visit spoke both come back to it because the park itself does.

Statues and retired numbers

Outside the park, three bronze statues honor the franchise’s greats:

Ted Williams (2004), outside Gate B, depicting Williams placing his cap on a cancer-stricken boy, a tribute to his work with the Jimmy Fund.
“The Teammates” (2010), near Gate 5 at Ipswich and Van Ness, showing Williams, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Dom DiMaggio.
Carl Yastrzemski (2013).

On the right-field grandstand facade hang the retired numbers: 1 (Bobby Doerr), 4 (Joe Cronin), 6 (Johnny Pesky), 8 (Carl Yastrzemski), 9 (Ted Williams), 14 (Jim Rice), 26 (Wade Boggs), 27 (Carlton Fisk), 34 (David Ortiz), and 45 (Pedro Martinez), plus 42 for Jackie Robinson, retired across all of baseball.

Traditions as living history

Two of Fenway’s traditions are recent enough to date precisely and old enough now to feel permanent.

“Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond plays in the middle of the 8th inning, an official part of the routine since 2002, and the whole park sings the “so good, so good” call-back. It is not part of the seventh-inning stretch, which comes earlier.

“Dirty Water” by The Standells plays after every Red Sox home win, a tradition that dates to 1998. If the Sox win, you hear it on the way out, and the crowd knows the words.