NOTE TO READERS: What follows is a column first published in The Meridian Star in July of 1985. I had been assigned to fly to Boston to write a series of stories on Meridian native Dennis ‘Oil Can’ Boyd who was having an outstanding season as a starting pitcher for the Red Sox. During the six days I spent in Massachusetts, I got the chance to get to know a true legend. It wasn’t a person, but a baseball park.

BOSTON, Mass. — Ah, Boston. The city famous for beans and tea parties and Fenway Park. Having no desire for either beans or tea late Thursday afternoon, I set out to find one of the most legendary baseball fields the game of baseball has ever known.

Fenway means as much to baseball as any park that still exists. The Fenways and Wrigleys are what baseball is all about. At least that is what I had been told. Now I believe.

Getting to the park wasn’t that difficult. All you have to do is take the trolley to within about four blocks of the park. When you come out of the subway you still can’t see Fenway. Can you imagine being four blocks away from Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and not being able to see it?

Heck you have to walk four blocks in Atlanta just to get from your car to the ticket office. Anyway, a beginner’s set of direction from the man at the newsstand was all that was needed to get pointed in the right direction.

I first recognized the park because of the lights that thrust themselves into the sky. But it was hard to tell exactly which way was home plate and where the outfield fences were from where I was standing. After thinking it over, my trip took me down Landsdowne Street.

Landsdowne is an interesting alley of a street. Just a few steps down the road and I could see the venders trying to sell their freshly baked pretzels. These hunks of salt-drenched dough were huge. From a distance, I thought they were loaves of bread. 

A little further down the street the contrasts continued. A glance to the left and I saw graffiti scrawled all over the walls of windowless buildings. Then I noticed a nightclub, and then another. For some reason I glanced to the right and there it was — The Green Monster, the legendary left field wall of Fenway Park. It stood taller than could be imagined.

The wall is more than a barrier for baseballs, it’s history. It was difficult to believe that I was actually standing beyond it. Just a few blocks ago there were punk rockers with multi-colored hair adorned with all sorts of metal hanging from all sorts of places on their heads standing around the street and now, with just a glance to my right, I was back on a nostalgia trip. It was like being transported from the ’80s into the ’30s just by walking a few blocks.

I walked all the way around the park. If I hadn’t known where I was and the lights hadn’t been guarding the field like so many metal soldiers I would have thought I was just walking around an old city block. The stadium walls are brick, and there is no indication that baseball is played behind them. That is, until you make it around to the ticket windows.

While being outside of the park was a thrill, being inside was almost more than one man’s heart can take. Sitting in the press box it’s easy to see that Fenway is indeed a place that baseball was meant to be played. It wasn’t perfect. A bunch of architects didn’t get together and decide what the perfect athletic facility should look like and then go out and build it here in Boston.

There is not a parking lot getting in the way or a big round blue thing standing off by itself pretending to be a stadium. Fenway Park is a part of the city. It is truly a historical landmark.

Once inside the stadium you just don’t want to leave. This is one of the ballparks that is for the fans. They are right on top of the players, unlike the modern stadiums where the fans are kept away from the players.

At first glance you have to feel that the baseball field is pointed in the wrong direction. The outfield fences are what give that false impression. Of course the Green Monster mans its post in left field. The fence gets further away from home plate until reaching the 420 foot mark in right center, then the wall dramatically juts in before beginning the normal trip of a fence toward the right-field line. About 40 feet from the right field pole, it begins a dramatic curve toward home plate.

The modern baseball fan would say that those kind of dimensions are not fit to be part of baseball, that the senses should be just so and the seats should be just so many feet away from the field and that there should be a least 60,000 seats in any stadium instead of the just under 35,000 available at Fenway. They would say that you should be able to park 20,000 cars around the baseball stadium in order to make it convenient for those attending the game.

Those folks have never been to Fenway.

Austin Bishop, AKA The Old Sports Dude, has been covering high school, college, amateur and professional sports since 1975. He is currently pastor of Great Commission Assembly of God in Philadelphia. He may be contacted by email at starsportsboss@yahoo.com.