Even though baseball seems to be taking a hit — even in Boston — there’s still something special about the home opener.
And for those who cling to the romantic notion that Fenway Park is the historical equivalent of Faneuil Hall and Paul Revere’s house, going to opening day is like going to a shrine.
Fenway is the oldest Major League baseball park in the nation. And even though it has been systematically gussied up since John Henry took over ownership of the Red Sox, it still stands as a reminder of all that’s happened there over the course of 106 years.
You may not know this, but Fenway Park opened on April 20 1912 — five days after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic. It took three days before the Red Sox could play the New York Yankees due to incessant rain and cold (well at least something’s remained consistent). And by the time the two teams played, and the Red Sox won, news of the opening of this (at the time) state-of-the-art ballpark was overshadowed by the incredibly tragic and horrifying stories about the Titanic.
Some might say that the juxtaposition of the two events was an omen. For the first six years of Fenway’s existence, the Red Sox were in a golden era. They had Babe Ruth, who was a pitcher at the time, and a roster of stars that gave Boston World Series titles that fall, plus in 1915, 1916 and 1918.
The last of those four titles happened under strange circumstances the American and National leagues wanted to get it out of the way so the nation could concentrate on World War I, in which, by then, the United States was heavily involved. It was during that 1918 series that the National Anthem was first played before the start of a sporting event. Needless to say that tradition continues, and has become an increasing presence in the nation’s consciousness.
Of course, the Red Sox then proceeded to trade The Babe to the Yankees and never made it back to the World Series until 1946 — and didn’t win another one until 2004.
Opening Day at Fenway has, in more recent years, served as a way to honor Boston’s unique position in professional sports (among the four teams, there have been 10 world championships since 2002). The Red Sox have honored five New England Patriots Super Bowl-winning teams, plus three world championship squads of their own (trotting out the venerable Boston Pops on more than few occasions to make Opening Day a true civic celebration).
Back when Charles Steinberg was their public relations guru, the Red Sox always promised something splashy and spectacular on Opening Day, and Charles never disappointed. We forgave Bill Buckner for his inopportune error in 1986. We honored Johnny Pesky and the four “teammates.” We had a “Field of Dreams” motif when the park hit its centennial, with as many past members marching in any and all entrance points as if they were emerging from a corn field.
Sometimes, Opening Day has served as a positive indication of what was about to happen during the season. In 1967, new manager Dick Williams promised a hustling ballclub that would win more than it would lose. Then, the Sox went out and beat the White Sox, 5-4, thanks to Rico Petrocelli’s clutch hitting. The temperature was 46 degrees — which is apparently what the forecast is for Thursday. Bundle up.
Of course, if you’re any kind of a Red Sox fan worthy of the title, you know how the 1967 season ended up, and the history behind it. Right?
And speaking of the weather, the late Don Zimmer, who managed this team through some of its greatest and exasperating seasons all at once, said that his memory of Fenway in April was “39 degrees and drizzle.”
That seems to be the case more often than not. It takes forever to warm up here once the season starts. We’ll be well into May by the time we lose the stocking caps and gloves which are such necessary accoutrements for night games at Fenway.
Despite all that, opening day at Fenway is an annual benchmark — a necessary harbinger that — at the very least — spring is on the way. It might not seem so now, but it’s coming.
This year, the Red Sox open up as favorites to remain in MLB’s elite core of teams and contend for the American League East championship. The new “Murderers Row” Yankees might have something to say about that, but experts put the Red Sox in the conversation when it comes to making the postseason.
As the great Morris Horvitz once said, “we shall see what we shall see.” The Red Sox have opened a lot of promising seasons and fallen flat on their faces. As Frank Sinatra once sang in “That’s Life,” “ridin’ high in April, shot down in May.”
My gut tells me the Red Sox will make the summer interesting. Anything that happens beyond that is almost impossible to predict.