Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (4 page)

Kevin:
Are you sure about this, Josh?

Josh:
Trust me. I know our readers.

Fortunately for Fenway fans, the chance of finding just such an individual presents itself almost immediately upon their stepping out of the Kenmore Square MBTA station. There on the sidewalk, in the shadow of the Hotel Buckminster, fans find a motley crew of hardworking gents who aren’t bashful about barking out enticing propositions like “Got two, first base side.” Unless the Yankees are in town or a late-season tilt with playoff implications is on the docket, expect to pay double-face for Grandstand and Box seats and triple-face for the still-more-affordable Bleacher seats.

Boston’s Fenway neighborhood provides much of the housing for the city’s collegiate population. Even on game days visitors are apt to observe nearly as many sweatshirts bearing the crests of Boston University, Northeastern, Emerson College and Berklee College of Music as ones bearing Red Sox logos. This is a fun, funky part of town that is safe and welcoming. The bars and nightclubs cater to the twenty-something clientele, combining the expected Red Sox decor with live music and relatively inexpensive cheer.

Built into the footprint of an actual city block at a time before the average American owned an automobile, Fenway’s planners never imagined the future benefit a multi-tiered parking garage beside the park might have provided. As such, fans are left at the mercy of private lots in the surrounding blocks. On game days, the gas stations on Boylston Street and even a local McDonald’s cordon off parts of their parking lots and charge road trippers exorbitant rates for the privilege of parking within their bounds. These range between $30 and $60 per game. For those who don’t mind walking a mile or so, better rates may be had. The Clarendon Garage (100 Clarendon St.) charges $27 on game days, but fans who have ticket stubs upon arriving pay just $9. Similarly, the Prudential Tower (800 Boylston St.) charges a flat rate of $16 for fans who arrive after two o’clock on weekdays. The only catch is that fans must relinquish their ticket stubs (one per car) upon settling up with the Pru parking attendants after the game. Well, there’s one other catch too. If the game’s rained out, the Pru charges the regular hourly rate. How’s that for insult to injury?

Prudential Parking Info:
www.prudentialcenter.com/parking/rates.php

Kevin:
Hold on there, Sparky. You’re telling me first I miss the game, then I get hosed on parking?

Josh:
That seems un-American.

Another option is to use one of the oldest subway systems in the country, Boston’s MBTA. Follow the Green Line to the recently remodeled Kenmore Station and it’s just a short walk to the game.

Subway Map:
www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/subway/

If you have time to kill before the game, head to Fenway early and stake out a spot on the corner of Yawkey Way and Van Ness Street. Here, you’ll find Boston’s legendary sausage vendors setting up their carts and better yet, you’ll get to rub elbows with the Red Sox players as they arrive. Well, to be more accurate, you’ll get to “rub elbows” with their side-view mirrors as they steer their Escalades and Mercedes through the channel of police barriers leading to the player parking lot. When the Sox are doing well and spirits in the home clubhouse are high, players often sign autographs or at least roll down their windows and exchange pleasantries with the fans who await them four or five hours before first pitch.

A pregame activity in which slightly later-arriving fans may partake transpires on the other side of the park, behind Fenway’s famous left-field Wall. Here, on Lansdowne Street—where, it should be noted, loiterers also get to bask in the aromatic delight of so many sizzling sausages—fans keep their eyes on the sky so as to avoid taking a batting practice homer off the noggin. As batting practice participants take aim at the Green Monster, balls careen into the street with regularity and glove-toting fans scramble to procure them. The best spot is behind the foul pole, in front of the Cask & Flagon. Here, the Wall stands just 310 feet from home plate, whereas farther down Lansdowne, in left-center, it stands 379 feet away.

If you think Lansdowne is crowded with ball hawks and sausage lovers on the day you visit, you may take heart in knowing it could be worse. Such was the case on a July evening in 1999 when Fenway hosted the midsummer Home Run Derby. A day before local hero Pedro Martinez would claim MVP honors in the All-Star Game, ten thousand fans crammed Lansdowne in hopes of snagging a McGwire or Sosa long ball. The juiced-up Red Head hit thirteen dingers in the first round, while the Doping Dominican hit an embarrassing one. In the end, Ken Griffey Jr., a lefty swinger who we’d like to think was “clean,” went home the winner.

Kevin:
Speaking as a lifelong Mariner fan, I can assure you Junior was clean.

Josh:
You could tell me Mother Teresa was clean and I wouldn’t believe you if she played baseball in the 1990s.

Believe it or not, there are two statues of Ted Williams outside Fenway’s right-field entrance on Van Ness Street. The longer-standing one depicts an aging Williams playfully placing his cap on the head of an awestruck youngster. The
piece, which was erected in 2004, was inspired by Williams’s generous support of the Jimmy Fund, a charitable arm of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which was founded in 1948 and has enjoyed a partnership with the Red Sox since 1953. Thanks to Williams’s work back in the early days, through the generations supporting the Jimmy Fund became as much a part of Red Sox fan tradition as eating Yaz Bread and booing umpire Larry Barnett whenever he returned to the Fens after his bad call in the 1975 World Series.

The second Williams rendering exists among a quartet of Red Sox heroes in a sculpture titled “The Teammates.” The piece is named after iconic sports historian David Halberstam’s 2003 book of the same name. In the sculpture, Williams poses with Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr. All are portrayed in the prime of youth. In the book, Halberstam told the story of how, as octogenarians, DiMaggio, Pesky, and Doerr embarked on a thirteen-hundred-mile car ride to visit the seriously ill Williams in 2001.

Along Fenway’s Van Ness Street façade the Red Sox display several large vertical banners honoring the greatest players in club history. Included are the names and uniform numbers of old-time stars like Tris Speaker, Lefty Grove, and Rick Ferrell, as well as of more recent ones like Bruce Hurst, Jerry Remy, and Bob Stanley.

Along the same stretch, the Red Sox’ retired numbers hang on the stadium’s brick exterior. We’ll wait to tell you more about these until we get inside, where, of course, the same numbers also appear.

Following the stadium perimeter toward Gate A, fans will encounter bronze plaques mounted on the brick exterior honoring the most influential of Red Sox. These Cooperstown-style tributes celebrate the achievements of former owner Tom Yawkey, former manager Eddie Collins, former “pitcher” George Herman Ruth, and several others.

Back in the days before every game at Fenway was sold out in advance, and before Red Sox management transformed Yawkey Way into part of the inside-the-turnstiles experience, fans would walk up to the park’s original ticket booths to buy game passes. These booths still stand today, set just inside the large bay doors that compose Fenway’s Gate A. They are unmanned and serve no functional purpose since the fans passing through them already have had their tickets electronically scanned on the street. Still, it’s worth visiting these relics, walking through their narrow corridors, and reveling in their charm.

Across the street from Gate A this large souvenir and apparel store hawks the expected assortment of caps, jerseys, and tees, as well as novelty items like the very same “Wally the Green Monster” Bean Bag Buddy that Red Sox commentator Jerry Remy brings to every game, home or away, to join him and fellow NESN announcer Don Orsillo in the booth.

Kevin:
Isn’t the Rem-Dog a tad old to be playing with dolls?

Josh:
Aren’t you a tad old to be collecting stadium ice cream helmets?

Kevin:
Touché.

645 Beacon St.

www.bostonhotelbuckminster.com/

A block from the park, on the other side of the bridge that spans the Mass Pike, stands a harmless-looking triangular building that houses a Pizzeria Uno at ground level and a 94-room hotel upstairs. This is the Hotel Buckminster, which, in fact, has as dark a history as any just-outside-the-park hotel in the bigs. According to Eliot Asinof’s account of the 1919 Black Sox scandal,
Eight Men Out
, this is where the conspiracy to fix the World Series took shape. Within the Buckminster, gangster Joe “Sport” Sullivan reputedly met White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil and the two agreed upon the price of $80,000 to put the Series in the proverbial bag. Its history aside, “the Buck” is a classy and convenient place for fans to stay. And hotel staff is happy to field questions related to “the scandal.”

400 Huntington Ave.

Not far from Fenway, on the campus of Northeastern University, a bronze statue depicts Cy Young staring in to read a sign from an imaginary catcher. The statue stands where the pitcher’s mound once rose at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, which served the Boston Pilgrims when they hosted the very first World Series in 1903. Young, who delivered the first pitch of the best-of-nine tilt against the Pittsburgh Pirates, lost the first game and his Pilgrims lost three of the first four, before rebounding to win the World Championship in eight games. The next season, Young threw the first perfect game in American League history from the Huntington mound, blanking the Philadelphia A’s 3-0.

62 Brookline Ave.

www.casknflagon.com/

Situated behind the Green Monster, “the Cask” displays an impressive collection of historic ballpark and Boston pictures. This is probably your best bet if you want the traditional Red Sox fan experience. There’s usually a line at the door but it moves quickly. And the patio allows more patrons to partake than back when the Cask was just an indoor place.

For the record, this is the place where—fueled by a few too many pints and a shared dream—your humble authors drew up the first bullet-point outline of the book proposal that would eventually become
The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip
. As cliché as it sounds, Kevin literally scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin while Josh munched on buffalo wings and greasily imagined a future in which two road tripping Emerson College grad students would convince a publisher to front their fantasy tour of the big leagues.

Josh:
Come to think of it, you scribbled class notes on cocktail napkins at Emerson too.

Kevin:
Funny. But for some reason I don’t remember that.

61 Brookline Ave.

www.beerworks.net/home

More upscale and with a larger menu than the Cask, Beer Works boasts an assortment of Fenway- and Red-Sox-named homebrews. Since opening at this location in 1992, it has introduced satellite franchises at Logan Airport, near the Fleet Center, and in the surrounding suburbs. Its beer may be purchased at stores throughout Massachusetts.

19 Yawkey Way

Located across from Gate A, this is a proximate place to grab a quickie before the game. If it’s convenience you seek, however, the Cask is just as close and is a better bet, provided the line to get in isn’t too long.