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Coming home from a road trip at three or four in the morning and waiting for the buses, we’d go out and sit by the first base stands and just look at the park and the quiet of Fenway when it’s dark. That’s always been a cool thing to do. There are so many things about it that are charming. What they’ve done with Fenway is absolutely incredible. The way it’s been rebuilt is amazing. Who knew you could keep the old charm with the modern amenities?

—Joe Castiglione, Boston Red Sox radio play-by-play broadcaster

Opened on April 20, 1912, just five days after the Titanic sank into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, Fenway Park, home of the history-rich Boston Red Sox, is the oldest stadium in the majors, beating Chicago’s Wrigley Field by over two years. Fenway’s first year in Boston proved to be a fruitful one, as the team won the first of four World Series championships they would take home in a seven-year span. Perhaps the greatest contributor to three of those championships was Red Sox left-hander George Herman Ruth, otherwise known as “the Babe.” In his six seasons with the Red Sox, Ruth, arguably the greatest slugger in baseball history, was better known for his feats from the mound. The southpaw won 89 games, not including the three he won in the 1916 and 1918 World Series, and struck out 483 batters, while sporting a Red Sox uniform. After the 1919 season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000, which Frazee, in turn, invested in his Broadway ventures. While the title of Frazee’s play escapes the memories of virtually every Bostonian, Ruth’s 659 home runs, 1,978 RBIs, and four World Series titles over the next 15 seasons with the Yankees haven’t been so forgettable for New Yorkers.

The Curse of the Babe: January 5, 1920–October 20, 2004

Although the number that hung over the heads of Red Sox fans and players alike was 86 seasons without a championship, what the sporting world came to refer to as “the Curse of the Babe” actually began 14 months after Boston’s 1918 World Series championship, when Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees. Over the next 85 years, Red Sox fans would have more heartbreaking moments than a low budget telenovela. In the 1946 World Series, the heavily favored Red Sox lost game 7 to the St. Louis Cardinals when Enos Slaughter scored from first unexpectedly in the top of the 9th. Many believe Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky held the ball too long, and it cost them the title. Pesky’s name would eventually be cemented in a different way at Fenway Park. Although fruitless in their next two World Series appearances in 1967 and 1975, the manifestation of the curse was at its peak in game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets. With the Red Sox leading by two going into the bottom of the 10th and leading the series 3–2, the team relinquished the lead. The collapsing of the Red Sox’s hopes of breaking the curse culminated in Boston’s all-star first baseman Bill Buckner’s misplay of a ground ball hit by the Mets’ Mookie Wilson, which scored the winning run and forced a game 7 that the Mets won 8–5. Buckner’s gaffe, which is arguably the most famous in baseball history, plagued the Red Sox for another 18 years. Perhaps the last great run of the curse took place during the 2003 American League Championship Series against (who else but) the New York Yankees. With the visiting Red Sox leading by three runs as late as the eighth inning of game 7, manager Grady Little left starter Pedro Martinez in the game arguably too long. The Yankees tied the game to force extra innings. After two and a half innings of scoreless ball courtesy of Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, New York’s third baseman Aaron Boone led off the bottom of the 11th with a walk-off home run off knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. The Yankees won their 39th American League pennant, and the last image before the broadcast went dark was that of Babe Ruth winking.

Almost a full year later, the Yankees and Red Sox met again for the pennant. After being bludgeoned 19–8 on October 16, 2004, the Red Sox trailed the Yankees a seemingly insurmountable 3–0 in the best of seven series. The following night the Red Sox found themselves down 4–3 and one inning from their season ending, once again, without a championship. Then in his 22nd year as a Red Sox broadcaster, Joe Castiglione looks back on game 4 of the 2004 ALCS as one of his most memorable, saying, “We’re on the verge of elimination and Dave Roberts steals, Bill Mueller singles him home, and Big Papi (David Ortiz) wins it with a walk off in extra innings and then again the next night.” Beginning that night, the Red Sox won an unprecedented four straight games facing elimination and broke the 85-season-spanning curse. Practically opposite to what had happened just one year before, the 2004 ALCS broadcast ended with the Babe, as Joe Castiglione, channeling his mentor, Detroit Tigers play-by-play broadcaster Ernie Harwell, signed off, saying, “Move over Babe,” a lyric written years before by Harwell.

Fenway Proverb: Pesky’s Pole Giveth, But the Green Monster Taketh Away

Having provided some background to the mystique and lore one can only find in a sports venue nicknamed “the Chapel,” we turn our attention to the playing field itself, which is among the most unique in baseball in dimensions. Without question, the most recognizable landmark in any of the league’s 30 ballparks is Fenway’s “Green Monster.” The fame of this feature is so prominent, the Red Sox organization probably receives royalty checks from campfire storytellers from time to time just for use of the name. When asked what a newcomer would notice while walking up Fenway’s aisles for the first time ever, Joe Castiglione, a man who has called more than 5,000 games, including 112 in the postseason and three World Series championships, simply answers, “the Wall.” After a brief chuckle, Castiglione continues, “Definitely the left-field wall. You notice how tall it is, how green it is, and how close it is.” The adjective “close” is a huge understatement; the base of the 37-foot-high Green Monster lies just 310 feet from home plate, a mere 50 feet farther than most regulation little league fields. The proximity of this famed (and often copied) Fenway feature to the batter does not necessarily guarantee a home run. A “laser shot” that may land deep into the bleachers of other ballparks wouldn’t have enough time or distance to lift before caroming off the Green Monster some 25 feet up, falling back onto the field for a very loud “wallball single.” Of course, a moon raker that may linger high in the air and fall on the warning track in pitcher-friendly stadiums like Petco Park in San Diego could find its way over the Green Monster and deposit itself on Boston’s famous Lansdowne Street. While the hitters inside Fenway make swings usually reserved for a game of “three flies up,” the left fielders drop anchor in relatively shallow territory, playing balls hit off the wall on a regular basis. Any outfielder coming to Boston knows he had better hit the squash courts at his local recreational center before boarding that plane; still, as Joe Castiglione would reassure the Fenway skeptical should a fresh face don the red and white, “It’s really not that difficult for a major leaguer to adapt defensively. These guys play all over. There’s 30 ballparks in baseball. They adapt very quickly.” One distinct feature of Fenway’s Green Monster to which “these guys” must quickly adapt is the manually operated scoreboard. With the word “BOSTON” always displayed in the home half and dozens more slots on the wall doing Massachusetts’s version of the “hanging chad,” left fielders tend to find playing off the Green Monster a bit tricky. Castiglione comments, “It’s not that tough unless it hits one of the slots where the score numbers are placed, one of the ledges, or the ladder; but, generally, the bounces are fairly true.”

Aside from making the outfielders chase down bad bounces like a junior high school gym class running ladder drills, the Green Monster has been host to some of Boston’s most famous (and infamous) home runs. On October 2, 1978, in the 163rd game of the season, the Yankees and Red Sox squared off in a one-game, winner-take-all playoff at Fenway Park. With the Red Sox leading 2–0 in the top of the seventh, Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent, having only hit four home runs in the season’s previous 162 games, hit a fly ball to left, just barely clearing the top of the Green Monster, scoring Dent, Chris Chambliss, and Roy White to give the Yankees a lead they would never relinquish. Although Bucky Dent has probably never been on the receiving end of a free drink in Boston watering holes, the same cannot be said for former Red Sox catcher Carlton “Pudge” Fisk. On October 21, 1975, with game 6 of the World Series between Boston and Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” tied 6–6 in the bottom of the 12th, Fisk was at the plate facing Reds reliever Pat Darcy. On Darcy’s second pitch of the night, Fisk launched a fly ball so close to the left-field foul pole, he had to wave it back inside. Fisk’s home run over the Green Monster to send the series to a decisive game 7 is arguably the greatest in postseason history.

The Green Monster has had its fair share of “upgrades” over the park’s 103 seasons. Originally 25 feet tall and made of wood, the wall was extended 12 feet in 1934 to the height it is recognized by today. In 1947, Fenway’s feature earned its nickname as a result of owner Tom Yawkey having the advertisements draping the wall’s facade painted over with the color green. The wall was rebuilt in 1976 with added safety features like padding and a relocated yet still manual scoreboard. The Red Sox organization made the Green Monster a fan-inclusive experience in 2003, adding 274 seats atop the wall, making it look, from the batter’s perspective, like an overfilled dam about to burst red-and-white-colored debris all over the field.

As close as the Green Monster is to home plate, its right-field counterpart, complete with its own nickname and legend, is a full eight feet closer. In 1940, after the arrival of arguably baseball’s greatest hitter ever, Ted Williams, the year before, the Red Sox installed bullpens in right field, which brought the fences in 23 feet. A left-handed hitter, Williams pulled so many balls over to right field and beyond the fences that they nicknamed the bullpen area “Williamsburg.” While the Green Monster in left field is known to take away many would-be home runs, the foul pole in right field, nicknamed “Pesky’s Pole” by former Red Sox player and broadcaster Mel Parnell, has been known to hand out a few of them. Former Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky, a teammate of Ted Williams, was not a slugger by any definition of the term. In fact, he only hit 17 home runs over his 10-year career, and just six of those were at Fenway Park. Today, well over half a century later, “Pedroia’s Pole” just wouldn’t sound as right to the “Red Sox Nation.”

In between Pesky’s Pole and the Green Monster lies another of Fenway’s famous features, “the Triangle,” in straightaway center. Some 420 feet from home plate and standing 17 feet in the air, the Triangle is one of the toughest home runs to hit in baseball. Though sluggers may tend to scratch their heads at the futility of a 400-plus-foot “loud out,” base runners bring new meaning to the term “love triangle.” While fly balls caroming off the Green Monster tend to slow the wide-rounding base runner, limiting him to the notorious wallball single, a shot to center over the outfielder’s head, especially one that pinballs around in that confounding crevice, is a surefire triple for even the slowest of legs and a potential inside-the-park home run for the speediest.

As far as Fenway’s stance on pitcher versus hitter, Joe Castiglione says, “It depends on the wind and time of the year. It can be forgiving in right center and right in April and May when balls don’t travel, but, in the summertime, it’s definitely more of a hitter’s park. Not a home run park but a doubles park. When it’s cold the first couple of months, I think it’s really more of a pitcher’s park.” Regardless of the time of year, no hitter felt befriended by Fenway when Pedro Martinez pitched in a Red Sox uniform. Aside from the obvious game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, when asked which was his most memorable game announcing at Fenway Park, Castiglione replied, “Anytime Pedro Martinez pitched. He was so electric and dominant. The best I’ve ever seen.” Considering that the list includes names like Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, and Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez’s slot at the top is no small feat. In fact, Martinez’s Cy Young performance during the ’99 season (23 wins, 2.07 ERA, 313 Ks) is considered arguably the greatest pitching performance of the modern era.

Fenway Park Today: Good Luck Finding a Ticket

As a testament to the “Fenway faithful,” former Red Sox outfielder and current lead TV play-by-play voice for the Chicago White Sox Ken “Hawk” Harrelson looks back on his most memorable days in his Fenway red and white, saying, “Anytime anybody asked me about Fenway Park, it was the fans because you’d go out and have a tough evening where you don’t get much sleep. You come to the ballpark the next day. Maybe the night before, you had a couple too many beers and you don’t feel good. All of a sudden you put that uniform on and you walk out that dugout, and there’s 38,000 right there going, ‘Hawk, Hawk,’ and all of a sudden, poof. You feel good again. That’s what I will always remember about that ballpark. You have those moments that are so memorable. I played against Mickey Mantle in his last game at Fenway Park in ’68. We knew it was gonna be his last game when (Ralph) Houk sent him up to pinch hit, and I was standing out there in right field crying. I looked over to Yaz in left field and he’s crying. I couldn’t see our infielders but I’ll guarantee you Rico (Petrocelli), Mike Andrews, and those guys were crying, too, because Mickey Mantle was a symbol of baseball. Mickey Mantle was loved by all of his peers. Mickey really never knew how much he was loved by us. We loved that guy because he was a great guy, and maybe the greatest talent that God ever put on the face of the earth. Mickey was something special, and playing against him his last game was something special, too. I played against him for six years and I was almost crying like a baby out there in right field.”

While over time the chants may have changed from “Hawk” or “Yaz” to “Pudge,” and then to “Papi” or “Muddy Chicken,” the one constant has been the standing-room service taking place in “the Chapel.” On May 15, 2003, still a year and a half from ending the Curse of the Babe, the Red Sox fans started a decade-spanning run of their own, selling out a major sports record-breaking 820 straight home games. Baseball’s previous record of 455 was held by the 1995–2001 Cleveland Indians at (then) Jacobs Field, while the major sports record of 814 was held by the 1977–1995 Portland TrailBlazers. During the streak, which included play-off games as well, the Red Sox made the postseason six times, including four American League Championship Series and two World Series titles (2004, 2007). One portion of the streak—a rather forgettable one for the 36,000 plus fans in attendance—was the historic collapse of September 2011. Leading the Tampa Bay Rays by nine games for the Wild Card on September 3, the Red Sox finished the season 6–18, the 18th loss being a blown ninth-inning save by then-Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon. Coupled with a walk-off, seven-run-deficit-erasing win by the Rays over the Yankees, the Red Sox’s play-off hopes went out the door, soon to be followed by once-beloved manager Terry Francona, general manager Theo Epstein, and eventually a few of the Red Sox’s priciest players. Castiglione describes the off-field events of the following year, in which the team dealt Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, and Carl Crawford to the Los Angeles Dodgers: “It was more of a purge to get rid of a lot of money and bad contracts. Probably bought about eight years of financial recovery by getting rid of those people.” The spring after “the purge” marked the end of Boston’s record-shattering home sellout streak, on April 10, 2013, one month short of a full decade. Although the streak was over, Boston’s 2013 season still had plenty of room for history, as the team became the 11th ever to go from worst to first in one season. Winning their first division title in six years, the Red Sox mowed through Tampa Bay and Detroit in dramatic fashion to represent the American League in the 2013 fall classic. Interestingly enough, on the National League side, the Los Angeles Dodgers fell two wins short of the World Series, which would have pitted the Red Sox against a 2011 version of themselves, like a virtual matchup on EA Sports’ video game MLB: The Show. Instead, the Sox bested the St. Louis Cardinals for the second time in 10 seasons on baseball’s biggest stage, restoring the balance, and with it, the love from the Fenway faithful.