Of kittens, sisters, and two red chairs

Thanks to a recent appointment in Boston for a recovering stray kitten and subsequent prompting by my sister, I was able to check off one of my SIN (Someday Is Now) list items, that being to take a tour of Fenway Park in Boston, MA. Being a lifelong Sox fan, I’d seen many games at the old ball park, yet had never toured its quirky, multi-angled square footage before. It was quite a different experience from attending a game, with its myriad sights, scents, and sounds.

I almost didn’t go, even though I had the time and was already in Boston. To be transparent, I’d fallen out of love with watching sports, including baseball, during the Covid years (all those weird schedules and empty stadiums) and had resorted to following the Sox’s progress only through scoreboard-watching on my phone.

Funny how one day, one moment, one decision can change so much, isn’t it?

Although lacking the energy of gameday, walking up to the venerable park still felt special, passing the statues of some of the Red Sox heroes of yesteryear and other familiar sights. Once through the obligatory metal detector routine, we gathered to greet our tour guide and listen to some ground rules. Again, it felt strange to be within the quiet concrete and steel underbelly, with its vendors’ stations closed and hallways absent of fans. Then, we walked up a set of stairs, the same one I’d scaled many times, and, much like when Dorothy walked out of that wind-blown house in the Wizard of Oz, everything changed from shades of gray to brilliant color.

The Green Monster grabbed me first, that glorious thirty-seven-foot-high left field impediment that has dared so many sluggers to try and smack a fastball over it, often ending up with a mere single for their effort. When we made it to the top concourse, another, more vibrant shade of green flooded me with warm memories, and I couldn’t help but smile. Real Kentucky Blue Grass, not artificial turf, not ground up rubber tires painted green, but genuine, living grass filled the infield and outfield with its luster.

All through the ensuing tour, from learning about the oldest wooden seats in baseball, to sitting atop the Green Monster, and checking out the press box, we were treated to Red Sox history and stats. The tour guide painted a vivid picture and brought me back to a simple game using balls, bats, and gloves. Names of Sox heroes and their conquests swirled in my boyhood brain and I felt my baseball passion stirring once again, filling me with its sense of awe and history. And if this wasn’t enough to get me to once again yearn for peanuts and Cracker Jacks, two red seats sealed the deal.

One red chair I know quite well, the other is known by most baseball aficionados and certainly Red Sox nation. Both stand out in their own way. The former shares the same hue as its many neighbors, while the latter juts out from the sea of Fenway Green (the official Benjamin Moore paint color) seats to either side of it. Both of these fanny repositories hold a story.

Exhibit A is that larger seat you see above, the one sitting at a 40-degree angle from its brethren along the left field wall. I discovered this chair many years ago, when I purchased four tickets to a Red Sox game, so that I could bring my father-in-law, stepdaughter, and brother-in-law, who were all big Sox fans. The three seats directly behind this larger one represent the entire row, and aside from being a cool vantage point from which to view a game, that angled chair is forever burned in my brain, since it’s the one my father-in-law sat in that first time, and on a few subsequent trips to America’s smallest ballpark. He loved how that chair got him so close to the action, while being able to see the entire field. I enjoyed watching him as much as I enjoyed watching the game. His reactions were those of a true fan, for the good and bad. In-between innings, I’d catch him staring off into the distance, as if reliving so many baseball games from years gone by. How many of the heroes we’d learned about that morning had he watched here, in-person through the decades?

Exhibit B, while being far less comfortable (I did say it’s America’s smallest ballpark), is much more famous. It resides in Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21, and is 502 feet from home plate. It represents the landing spot for the longest recorded homerun ever hit at Fenway Park. Ted Williams―the Splendid Splinter―crushed that baseball on June 9, 1946. “Knocked out of the park” took on a painful new meaning for Joe Boucher, the fan whose head took the brunt of that tightly-stitched leather sphere on that fateful day. When he came to, he was quoted as saying: “How far away must one sit to be safe in this park?”

The final bit of gratification on the tour that day came courtesy of the reactions from my sister and our friend who joined us. Neither woman is much of a sports fan―never mind a follower of baseball―yet both came away with a new appreciation for the sheer volume of history soaked into the bones of this 123-year-old park. It struck me how one need not be a diehard fan to appreciate this place, tucked between office buildings and surrounded by busy streets on all sides.

Many things about baseball have changed since 1912, as is the case with most things in life, yet standing there, in the confines of this hallowed ground, the echoes of the grand old game surrounded me and invited me in, like an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while. And like leaving that friend’s house, I did so grudgingly on that day, filled with a longing to stay a while longer. I vowed to return again soon, on gameday, to let the sights, scents, and sounds carry me back and keep me grounded. Thank you, Donna, for your insistence and support that day.

Play ball!

Thank you for tuning in, folks. Until next time, get on out there and enjoy your own rites of spring. And remember, whatever you are, be a good one.

-Dave