Ever wonder why Fenway Park is still in use when every other stadium of its vintage (except Chicago’s Wrigley Field, opened two years later) has either crumbled or met with a wrecking ball? At least part of the answer appears to be in the extra-strength foundation. The park’s concrete footprint was constructed to support a two-level grandstand, but because money ran out, the upper deck was never built, although more seating of various kinds has been placed on the roof over the years, especially recently. This revelation is shared in “Field of our Fathers,” in which author Richard Johnson draws on a deep bullpen of historical sources: the Sports Museum in Boston, the Boston Public Library, and The Boston Herald, the city’s tabloid newspaper.
Johnson has chronicled Fenway’s multifaceted history for many years as the sports museum’s curator while authoring or editing 20 books on various aspects of the city’s rich sports heritage. There is surprisingly no index, yet Johnson provides a straight-line history that stitches together his own newspaper-style accounts with those of many sportswriters and other scribes down through the years.
What people often forget about the stadium is just how varied its uses once were. As Johnson points out, “For two generations, the place was nothing less than a People’s Park where high school and college baseball and football was as much a part of the schedule as the mostly hopeless Red Sox.” Some of this heritage is now being revived with hockey games in the winter. An international soccer match and concerts have also been scheduled. In the past, even and high school, college, and pro football have occupied Fenway’s hallowed grounds.
The tremendous cost of upgrading and incrementally expanding the stadium over the past 10 years (as well as trying to compete with the New York Yankees for free agents) has resulted in the Red Sox having the highest non-premium ticket prices in the majors. It is fascinating to learn, therefore, that in 1915, after winning the World Series, the team actually lowered its ticket prices, perhaps in a preemptive effort to stem any migration to a new stadium built for the National League’s Boston Braves not far away.
The book, like a box of Crackerjack, incorporates several surprises, including a plastic sleeve of facsimile tickets to 1946 and 1975 World Series games. Even during the latter year, a reserved grandstand seat cost only $12.50, less than half of today’s $28 price for a regular-season bleacher seat.
