Keeping the (Fenway) Faith

I first visited Fenway Park 15 years ago and only remember an enormous green field, no home runs, or even any players. But my second game, a 14-inning thriller, excited me so much that I was convinced sluggers Mo Vaughn and John Valentin had enough magic to win every night. As for Fenway Park itself, what I remember is not even part of the ballpark, but rather the regularly contracting triangle of the CITGO sign that hovered above the green wall only half a mile away.

Now, as a Fenway Park tour guide spouting trivia and anecdotes about the U.S.’s oldest ballpark for hundreds of visitors a day, I am feeding my inner fan’s appetite for insider access. Many fans listening to the park’s history are amazed at my luck: I get paid to hang around the very ballpark where the Red Sox have been pitching, homering, and base stealing their way into baseball history and mythology since 1912.

But how often do fans pause to consider if the baseball business refashions the fan mentality? Admittedly, whenever I measure the success of a tour by the amount of tips I receive or laughs a Yankees joke gets, my personal enthusiasm can wane. Among fans I meet, some lament rising ticket costs or the prominence of advertising but also accept that only an efficiently managed, shrewd business can generate revenue. As ballpark operations and the lucrative salaries are staples of the game, the thrill of witnessing a Manny Ramirez homer over the light-towers or a ninth-inning rally must sometimes strike a cool accommodation with the business side that brings the batter to home plate or the pitcher to the mound.

Yet among all of these considerations stands Fenway Park covered in fence green and contained within its irregular dimensions. Apart from these physical definitions, the most memorable fans on my tour are the ones that value the park more than the players, even if it is the players that draw them there in the first place.. The ballpark’s beauty is truly appreciated through the eyes of a seven-year-old who dashes into the grandstands for the first time, absorbing the enormity of the left-field “Green Monster,” and obsessively staring at the anonymous relief pitcher playing catch in right field. Fenway Park awes with its present, regardless of the unjust proportion of Red Sox joys to sorrows.

Alternatively, I often wonder if the older fans superimpose ghostly images of Ted Williams patrolling left field or imagine Carlton Fisk rounding the bases after his wave-it-fair home run in the World Series. Even without these vivid recollections, one fan could recall exactly where he sat in the 1946 World Series or another how he shimmied up the railroad ties backing up against the “Green Monster” when he didn’t have a nickel.

Even as I acknowledge the importance of business to baseball, I know that for some fans, the business won’t matter as long as the park itself endures. For nostalgia follows the excitement of childhood and endures thanks to a building that only leaves traces of its most cherished legends on the retired numbers façade.

Robert T. Hamlin ’10 is a Crimson sports editor in Mather House.