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At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation
The author of the sports classic The Curse of the Bambino relates the history and lore of one of the world's most celebrated sports franchises, the Boston Red Sox, and their beloved and venerable home, Fenway Park.
- GenresBaseballSportsNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Dan Shaughnessy
17 books28 followersDan Shaughnessy is an award-winning columnist for the Boston Globe and the author of several sports books, including The Curse of the Bambino, a best-selling classic. Seven times Shaughnessy has been voted one of America’s top ten sports columnists by Associated Press Sports Editors and named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year. He has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Early Show, CNN, Nightline, NPR, Imus in the Morning, ESPN, HBO, and many others. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
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March 30, 2023An ode to Fenway Park and the legacy of the Red Sox. Written in ‘96, it’s funny to look back in this snapshot in time as this book is fixed on the apparently never-ending “Curse of the Bambino” and the seemingly-doomed “Save Fenway” campaign. Since this book was published, the Red Sox have won the World Series four times! And although of course it must happen at some point, I’d definitely be shocked to hear about any plans about ever getting rid of Fenway.
Liz and I bought this book a few weeks ago from an antique shop in Concord in anticipation of attending Fenway Park Opening Day. I had an extremely lucky day and got free tickets from work. Finished this book the morning of the game. Looking forward to it!
Some highlights:
"Opening day at Fenway is the next big event of any Red Sox year. All over New England, there are empty chairs in classrooms, board rooms, and office cubicles. Phones go unanswered. There are funerals for grandmothers who may be at the game themselves. Dogs eat everybody's homework. It's an unofficial Back Bay holiday."
"Opening day is the day when there's red, white, and blue bunting hanging from Fenway's walls. The bunting is reserved for the opens and for postseason play... At Fenway, bunting in the background means opening day. A Boston woman named Jane Alden annually delivers [it] to Fenway. She is the Betsy Ross of Fenway Park."
"The charm of Fenway is that it is your father's ballpark. The rest of baseball is George Jetson. Boston is Miss Havisham."
"Fenway Park opened in April 1912, the same week the Titanic sank."
"The best entrance to the open-air Fenway yard is the portal just to the right of home plate. This is an absolute. We can debate the best place to watch the sunrise on Cape Cod or the best place to see New England's leaves turn in October, but there's no room for argument when it comes to your first sight of Fenway. If you're beneath the grandstand, walk until you come to the overhead sign that reads, Lower boxes 37-44, upper boxes 122-130, reserved sections 17-21."
"The key word is park. Boston's American League baseball franchise never played home games in a stadium. Fenway Park is not many things. It is not a multiplex. It is not a sports and convention center. It is not attached to a shopping mall or a Hard Rock Cafe. It is not covered by a dome with a retractable roof. It is not climate-controlled, and it does not have artificial turf. It is a park, in every sense of the word. It has green grass, fresh air, and is a fine place to take the family for an afternoon. Any list of America's best-known parks (Central, Yellowstone, Jellystone, Menlow, Yosemite, McArthur, Jurassic) has to include Fenway."
"The Fenway site was also in the heart of the Fens--a crown jewel in Frederick Law Olmsted's chain of parks known as the Emerald Necklace. A planned ring of parks and brooks, the Necklace put fields of green in the middle of a major Northeast city. Asked about a name for the new ballpark, Taylor said, "It's in the Fenway section, isn't it? Then call it Fenway Park.""
"The most interesting feature of the new ballpark was the small embankment in front of the tall wall in left field. The wall and the cliff were necessitated by the cozy presence of Lansdowne Street. A mere 325 feet from Fenway's home plate, Lansdowne couldn’t be moved or eliminated because it was banked on its far side by the Boston & Albany Railroad (today the Massachusetts Turnpike runs parallel to the rail tracks). Since they couldn't put the fence farther from home plate, they made it higher. They had to do something to keep hitters honest. Thus The Wall was born... The official color of the wall today is field green. It's a custom blend made for the Red Sox by the California Paint Co...When we come around to discussing the most famous walls in the world, we think of the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall, the Berlin Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and Fenway's Green Monster."
"For decades, The Wall has inspired debate among baseball fans. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage for the hometown team? Red Sox teams from the 1940s through the 1980s were designed with The Wall in mind. As a result, Boston baseball fans have watched three generations of right-handed sluggers try to bash the Red Sox to World Series victory. Much of this was done at the expense of pitching, speed, and defense elements that have brought championship teams to just about every major city from Baltimore to Los Angeles... The Green Monster seduces hitters, making them want to pull everything to left. Meanwhile, it's also blown the minds of more than a few young pitchers. It's long been held that a southpaw hurler is doomed at Fenway. All pitchers tend to stay away from the inside half of the plate. Managers also feel the impact. The Wall reminds every skipper that a big inning is always near; get a couple of walks and a windblown fly to left and you've got yourself a three-run homer. That kind thinking has kept the Red Sox from attempting to steal bases Over the years: you don't want to run yourself out of the big inning."
"Boston last won a World Series in 1918, and there's plenty of evidence that Fenway Park has contributed to the long drought. Teams have been built to take advantage of the ballpark, but teams built on power eventually can be stopped. A team of slow, power hitters is entertaining, but eventually the winds will shift and the power will be shut off. Then you don't have enough left to win baseball games. Pitching, speed, and defense are ingredients better suited for the long haul of a baseball season. Those are the elements that enable a team to disguise a hitting slump."
"There is almost no foul territory in Fenway. This, as much as the cozy left-field wall, helps hitters over a season. A hitter like Wade Boggs when he played for the Red Sox might have been saved two or three outs per week by foul balls that plopped into the nearby box seats, rather than into the mitts of American League first basemen, third basemen, and catchers."
"The largest crowd in the park's history was 47,627 for a doubleheader against the Yankees on September 22, 1935. The third-biggest crowd came when 46,766 turned out for Babe Ruth's final Fenway game on August 12, 1934. Unless the park is expanded, these single-day attendance figures will never again be reached because of the more stringent fire laws implemented after World War II. Today, Fenway's official seating capacity is 33,871. Standing room can bring the crowd up to 36,000. Officially speaking, the largest postwar Fenway crowd was 36,228 for a game against the Cleveland Indians in 1978."
"Formed in 1901, the Boston American League baseball franchise won five of the first fifteen World Series. But the Red Sox have not won the Series since 1918 and have subjected their fans to more near misses than any other team in sports history. The Chicago Cubs and Buffalo Bills have nothing on the Red Sox. The Sox since 1918 have been in four World Series and lost each in a seventh game. The 1986 Red Sox came within one strike of winning the Series, but blew it in ghoulish fashion. No team has ever come closer to winning the Fall Classic without actually winning. There have been only three one-game play-offs in American League history, and the Red Sox have lost two of them. From 1986 to 1995, Boston lost a major league record thirteen consecutive postseason games. These blown pennant races and awful Octobers have created the image that when it comes to the Red Sox .. something will go wrong. Always."
"Nationwide, baseball is having difficulty drawing new fans. The game has done a poor job of promoting itself. World Series games are played too late for children to watch, and the electronic/video generation prefers its sports fast, violent, and flashy. The NBA and the NFL appeal to today's younger audience, and advertisers have enlisted pro basketball and football players to sell merchandise to Nintendo kids."
"Boston University professor John Cheffers, an authority on the study of crowd behavior in America, told the Globe, "Boston fans love going to Fenway. A baseball game at Fenway is an event. The game is second. It's not the baseball they enjoy as much as the entire event. Boston fans are much more sophisticated than most sporting audiences."
"The late Bill Veeck, a Hall of Fame owner, said in 1980, "Boston fans are pro-Red Sox, but can change their minds in two minutes. The Red Sox only have to fall three runs behind before the front row gives them the thumbs-down. It's a reconstruction of the old Colosseum."
"For all of its broad-based appeal, Red Sox Nation comes up short in the minority community. Earlier in this chapter, Halberstam spoke of baseball as "inclusionary." Unfortunately, this hasn't held for Sox fans. Few people of color are in Red Sox Nation, and there are some good reasons for the Sox lack of a minority fans… There is ample evidence that the Sox were a racist organization throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties… All this has left its mark in what is historically a racially divided city. Fenway has never been a place where minorities feel welcome or comfortable, even today."
À widespread theory, put forth by many in the 1980s, is that a Red Sox World Championship would ultimately take something away from Sox fans. What, after all, would they complain about if the Sox actually won? And what would be left to look forward to? New Englanders love to grouse about the Towne Team, and if the Sox failed to fail, the team would lose its reason for being."
"Buckner soon found out that he would never be allowed to forget the stupid grounder.
The jokes started immediately. Two days after the Series ended, the day Buckner was set for ankle surgery at the University of Massachu-sets Medical Center in Worcester, Buckner turned on his radio and heard, "More than two and a half million people honored the world champions yesterday in New York, and the parade finished with the Mets' team bus going through Bill Buckner's legs."
"Elizabeth Dooley has had front-row season tickets (box 36A) since 1944. Except for an occasional wedding or funeral, she hasn't missed a game in more than fifty years… Elizabeth was born a few months after the Red Sox won the 1918 World Series."
"Despite their tag as lovable losers, the Red Sox have been competitive almost every season since 1967. From 1967 to 1987, the Sox finished .500 or better every year except 1983. The team was in pennant races in '72, ‘74, ‘75, ‘77, and ‘78."
"Traumatic as the death of the Boston Garden was, it will pale in comparison to the end of Fenway Park. Many New England baseball fans have an almost irrational attachment to Fenway."
"Save Fenway. Fenway has the aforementioned gross bathrooms, no parking, cramped seating, and a dearth of luxury boxes. It has antiquated facilities for fans, players, and media. But it's still the most beautiful ballpark in the world, and it'll always be the place where our fathers and grandfathers watched games. It's the place where Ted Williams took batting practice. It'll always be home."
Liz and I bought this book a few weeks ago from an antique shop in Concord in anticipation of attending Fenway Park Opening Day. I had an extremely lucky day and got free tickets from work. Finished this book the morning of the game. Looking forward to it!
Some highlights:
"Opening day at Fenway is the next big event of any Red Sox year. All over New England, there are empty chairs in classrooms, board rooms, and office cubicles. Phones go unanswered. There are funerals for grandmothers who may be at the game themselves. Dogs eat everybody's homework. It's an unofficial Back Bay holiday."
"Opening day is the day when there's red, white, and blue bunting hanging from Fenway's walls. The bunting is reserved for the opens and for postseason play... At Fenway, bunting in the background means opening day. A Boston woman named Jane Alden annually delivers [it] to Fenway. She is the Betsy Ross of Fenway Park."
"The charm of Fenway is that it is your father's ballpark. The rest of baseball is George Jetson. Boston is Miss Havisham."
"Fenway Park opened in April 1912, the same week the Titanic sank."
"The best entrance to the open-air Fenway yard is the portal just to the right of home plate. This is an absolute. We can debate the best place to watch the sunrise on Cape Cod or the best place to see New England's leaves turn in October, but there's no room for argument when it comes to your first sight of Fenway. If you're beneath the grandstand, walk until you come to the overhead sign that reads, Lower boxes 37-44, upper boxes 122-130, reserved sections 17-21."
"The key word is park. Boston's American League baseball franchise never played home games in a stadium. Fenway Park is not many things. It is not a multiplex. It is not a sports and convention center. It is not attached to a shopping mall or a Hard Rock Cafe. It is not covered by a dome with a retractable roof. It is not climate-controlled, and it does not have artificial turf. It is a park, in every sense of the word. It has green grass, fresh air, and is a fine place to take the family for an afternoon. Any list of America's best-known parks (Central, Yellowstone, Jellystone, Menlow, Yosemite, McArthur, Jurassic) has to include Fenway."
"The Fenway site was also in the heart of the Fens--a crown jewel in Frederick Law Olmsted's chain of parks known as the Emerald Necklace. A planned ring of parks and brooks, the Necklace put fields of green in the middle of a major Northeast city. Asked about a name for the new ballpark, Taylor said, "It's in the Fenway section, isn't it? Then call it Fenway Park.""
"The most interesting feature of the new ballpark was the small embankment in front of the tall wall in left field. The wall and the cliff were necessitated by the cozy presence of Lansdowne Street. A mere 325 feet from Fenway's home plate, Lansdowne couldn’t be moved or eliminated because it was banked on its far side by the Boston & Albany Railroad (today the Massachusetts Turnpike runs parallel to the rail tracks). Since they couldn't put the fence farther from home plate, they made it higher. They had to do something to keep hitters honest. Thus The Wall was born... The official color of the wall today is field green. It's a custom blend made for the Red Sox by the California Paint Co...When we come around to discussing the most famous walls in the world, we think of the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall, the Berlin Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and Fenway's Green Monster."
"For decades, The Wall has inspired debate among baseball fans. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage for the hometown team? Red Sox teams from the 1940s through the 1980s were designed with The Wall in mind. As a result, Boston baseball fans have watched three generations of right-handed sluggers try to bash the Red Sox to World Series victory. Much of this was done at the expense of pitching, speed, and defense elements that have brought championship teams to just about every major city from Baltimore to Los Angeles... The Green Monster seduces hitters, making them want to pull everything to left. Meanwhile, it's also blown the minds of more than a few young pitchers. It's long been held that a southpaw hurler is doomed at Fenway. All pitchers tend to stay away from the inside half of the plate. Managers also feel the impact. The Wall reminds every skipper that a big inning is always near; get a couple of walks and a windblown fly to left and you've got yourself a three-run homer. That kind thinking has kept the Red Sox from attempting to steal bases Over the years: you don't want to run yourself out of the big inning."
"Boston last won a World Series in 1918, and there's plenty of evidence that Fenway Park has contributed to the long drought. Teams have been built to take advantage of the ballpark, but teams built on power eventually can be stopped. A team of slow, power hitters is entertaining, but eventually the winds will shift and the power will be shut off. Then you don't have enough left to win baseball games. Pitching, speed, and defense are ingredients better suited for the long haul of a baseball season. Those are the elements that enable a team to disguise a hitting slump."
"There is almost no foul territory in Fenway. This, as much as the cozy left-field wall, helps hitters over a season. A hitter like Wade Boggs when he played for the Red Sox might have been saved two or three outs per week by foul balls that plopped into the nearby box seats, rather than into the mitts of American League first basemen, third basemen, and catchers."
"The largest crowd in the park's history was 47,627 for a doubleheader against the Yankees on September 22, 1935. The third-biggest crowd came when 46,766 turned out for Babe Ruth's final Fenway game on August 12, 1934. Unless the park is expanded, these single-day attendance figures will never again be reached because of the more stringent fire laws implemented after World War II. Today, Fenway's official seating capacity is 33,871. Standing room can bring the crowd up to 36,000. Officially speaking, the largest postwar Fenway crowd was 36,228 for a game against the Cleveland Indians in 1978."
"Formed in 1901, the Boston American League baseball franchise won five of the first fifteen World Series. But the Red Sox have not won the Series since 1918 and have subjected their fans to more near misses than any other team in sports history. The Chicago Cubs and Buffalo Bills have nothing on the Red Sox. The Sox since 1918 have been in four World Series and lost each in a seventh game. The 1986 Red Sox came within one strike of winning the Series, but blew it in ghoulish fashion. No team has ever come closer to winning the Fall Classic without actually winning. There have been only three one-game play-offs in American League history, and the Red Sox have lost two of them. From 1986 to 1995, Boston lost a major league record thirteen consecutive postseason games. These blown pennant races and awful Octobers have created the image that when it comes to the Red Sox .. something will go wrong. Always."
"Nationwide, baseball is having difficulty drawing new fans. The game has done a poor job of promoting itself. World Series games are played too late for children to watch, and the electronic/video generation prefers its sports fast, violent, and flashy. The NBA and the NFL appeal to today's younger audience, and advertisers have enlisted pro basketball and football players to sell merchandise to Nintendo kids."
"Boston University professor John Cheffers, an authority on the study of crowd behavior in America, told the Globe, "Boston fans love going to Fenway. A baseball game at Fenway is an event. The game is second. It's not the baseball they enjoy as much as the entire event. Boston fans are much more sophisticated than most sporting audiences."
"The late Bill Veeck, a Hall of Fame owner, said in 1980, "Boston fans are pro-Red Sox, but can change their minds in two minutes. The Red Sox only have to fall three runs behind before the front row gives them the thumbs-down. It's a reconstruction of the old Colosseum."
"For all of its broad-based appeal, Red Sox Nation comes up short in the minority community. Earlier in this chapter, Halberstam spoke of baseball as "inclusionary." Unfortunately, this hasn't held for Sox fans. Few people of color are in Red Sox Nation, and there are some good reasons for the Sox lack of a minority fans… There is ample evidence that the Sox were a racist organization throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties… All this has left its mark in what is historically a racially divided city. Fenway has never been a place where minorities feel welcome or comfortable, even today."
À widespread theory, put forth by many in the 1980s, is that a Red Sox World Championship would ultimately take something away from Sox fans. What, after all, would they complain about if the Sox actually won? And what would be left to look forward to? New Englanders love to grouse about the Towne Team, and if the Sox failed to fail, the team would lose its reason for being."
"Buckner soon found out that he would never be allowed to forget the stupid grounder.
The jokes started immediately. Two days after the Series ended, the day Buckner was set for ankle surgery at the University of Massachu-sets Medical Center in Worcester, Buckner turned on his radio and heard, "More than two and a half million people honored the world champions yesterday in New York, and the parade finished with the Mets' team bus going through Bill Buckner's legs."
"Elizabeth Dooley has had front-row season tickets (box 36A) since 1944. Except for an occasional wedding or funeral, she hasn't missed a game in more than fifty years… Elizabeth was born a few months after the Red Sox won the 1918 World Series."
"Despite their tag as lovable losers, the Red Sox have been competitive almost every season since 1967. From 1967 to 1987, the Sox finished .500 or better every year except 1983. The team was in pennant races in '72, ‘74, ‘75, ‘77, and ‘78."
"Traumatic as the death of the Boston Garden was, it will pale in comparison to the end of Fenway Park. Many New England baseball fans have an almost irrational attachment to Fenway."
"Save Fenway. Fenway has the aforementioned gross bathrooms, no parking, cramped seating, and a dearth of luxury boxes. It has antiquated facilities for fans, players, and media. But it's still the most beautiful ballpark in the world, and it'll always be the place where our fathers and grandfathers watched games. It's the place where Ted Williams took batting practice. It'll always be home."
March 29, 2025
I absolutely loved this book! I gotta say the one thing that kept making me a little disappointed when reading this book is constantly hearing about how New England is a baseball team even with all the Celtics championships and the success of the Bruins. And it would seem even at the start of the Patriots dynasty, but this book is written before the dynasty starts anyways. I wish I lived in a time where that was the case as now it doesn’t matter how good the other teams are you will only hear about the damn Patriots (who I don’t even like) regardless of the situation. Get a star like Ceochet, Bregman, others, and a promising season ahead and somehow the Patriots are still on the news. Take me back to those times except I probably would hate all the losing. I’ve heard the story of the 2004 Red Sox so many times that it was interesting to solely hear about the Red Sox losing and the curse of the Bambino. Also, about some who believed in the curse and others who didn’t. Just everything about Red Sox Nation was very interesting however it did feel like some parts here could have been shortened to talk about other topics From random fans to the groundskeeper to media personnel’s like Peter Gammons. Hearing the painstaking details of many of those WS runs and the fallouts were interesting because there is much to some stories I had no idea. Like I’ve known about Bill Buckner, but I didn’t realize just how terrible the reaction was and also how it didn’t make nearly as much of a difference as people claimed it didn’t (they still very well could’ve lost regardless) and the tragic story of Donnie Moore for the Angels. I was surprised not to get more about the 1975 World Series and I did wish they dove more into that as well as the other World Series appearances (67 and 46). Like this and all my reviews the organization of the book could’ve been better because it jumped around the years so much. I loved getting to better know some of the players like Ted Williams and Jim Rice and especially their interactions to Red Sox nation, the media, Jimmy Fund, etc. The Jimmy Fund and the authors personal relationship to it was beautiful. I was astounded 90% of New Englanders knew about it and I wonder if that number is still accurate today. Hopefully it is and it is definitely one of my favorite Charities that I feel like I should support more and this book has made me think about that so I’m glad to have been reminded of it and hear of its origin and how it’s helped so many people and has helped so many more since I’m sure. Lastly, it was funny to read the last chapter along with other sections of the book hearing about how Fenway might be closing down and a new Red Sox ballpark may be arising. Now I’m sure Dan knows that he will never see the day the ballpark closes and I’m only 23 but I don’t know that I will as well. I had no idea the plans of potentially closing in 2001 but thank god they were proven false and now Fenway has become a historical landmark and is the still the best ballpark in baseball. I love Fenway park and this made me dream of going there once again this season especially in the beginning when he speaks of first going and the joy of it. I’m glad Dan and others such as Stephen King got to see the curse broken but it is sad so many never did. Now we get to see them as the most successful 21st century team as of now and hopefully that will only continue. I definitely need to read more from Dan both from the Boston Globe as well as his other Red Sox stories such as The Curse of The Bambino
December 20, 2018
I really did enjoy reading At Fenway. The book tells many tales about the Red Sox and goes into so much of Fenway and the Sox' history. The book also tells a lot of stories about baseball writer Dan Shaughnessy and all of his experiences with the Red Sox. In conclusion, At Fenway was a very good read.
October 29, 2021
This collection feels like it is drawn from other sources and there is a fair amount of repetition, particularly with well established facts and events. That said, there are many stories and anecdotes that I had never heard before. I love the Red Sox, I love Fenway and I got a lot out of this book.
March 27, 2023
It's such a treat to read a book like this, published in 1996 as it is, and every other page is Red Sox Bad >:( Red Sox Never Gonna Win World Series >>:( Bill Buckner Stinky >>>:(
November 28, 2010
Comprehensive coverage of not only the Red Sox history but the stadium too. This is a rare subject, not every ball team deserves a book such as this one, the Sox do have a rich history and this story needed to be told. It does get a little dry in some areas (it took me 11 months to finish the book, I would read it off and on.). I thought Shaugnessy did a good job of informing the reader of the history and using his own personal accounts too. This book was written before the Sox went on to win the World Series, so some of the dramatic elements were lost knowing that the Sox finally broke out of their slump.
August 23, 2014
It's an OK review of the Red Sox history though I liked the book "Red Sox Nation" better. This seems to be too much from the perspective of 'beat reporters' and not first-hand player info and interviews (which Red Sox Nation had). I did like the last two chapters on the Jimmy Fund and "Save Fenway" though.
January 31, 2016
It's an OK review of the Red Sox history though I liked the book "Red Sox Nation" better. This seems to be too much from the perspective of 'beat reporters' and not first-hand player info and interviews (which Red Sox Nation had). I did like the last two chapters on the Jimmy Fund and "Save Fenway" though.
January 10, 2008
Long time Boston Globe columnist writes of the unique history, the allure, and the passion of baseball played by the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Uncovers a few good tidbits of info along the way. Having attended games here since 1973, let me tell you, it's always an event.
September 21, 2009
fun read; a little dated; it ends with a Save Fenway chapter as everyone was pushing for a new ballpark, and of course they were still under the Curse of the Bambino.
September 1, 2011
great book and stories about one of my most favorite places on Earth! Reading it put me in a seat and picturing a crowded day at the park!
November 8, 2013
This was a very good, general Red Sox history book. Not a lot of facts and figures, but a lot of human stories. History must be made of both. Recommended.
December 13, 2007
I loved this snapshot of red sox history.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews