Field of schemes

by Tom Scocca

Fenway Park may be thought of as timeless, but it's seen substantial change over the years -- heck, the Green Monster wasn't even green until 1947. Here's a brief chronology of Fenway, drawn from the staggeringly comprehensive website Ballparks (http://www.ballparks.com) and from The Baseball Encyclopedia (Macmillan, 1979).

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Green monstrosities
Field of schemes
Insider baseball

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1912: Fenway Park opens, with wooden grandstands and a 25-foot wooden wall in left field, set atop a 10-foot mound of earth. Bleachers are added in right and center fields in time for the 1912 World Series -- in which, at Fenway, the Sox rally in the bottom of the 10th inning to beat the New York Giants, 3-2, in the clinching game eight. (Game two had ended in a tie.)

1914: Rabbit Maranville and the Boston Braves of the National League sweep the World Series from the Philadelphia Athletics, playing their home games in the series at Fenway.

1915, 1916: The Red Sox return the favor by using brand-new Braves Field, which holds more people than Fenway, for back-to-back World Series appearances, in which they triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers. Babe Ruth doesn't get a hit in either series.

1918: Playing the World Series at Fenway again, the Sox beat the Chicago Cubs 4-2 in their last world championship.

1919: Babe Ruth foreshadows the live-ball era by hitting a record 29 home runs for the Sox. The Sox sell Ruth to the Yankees, justifying the move by saying that hitting so many home runs demonstrates an unscientific approach to batting. In fact, Sox owner Harry Frazee, who was also a Broadway producer, sold Ruth to finance the musical No, No, Nanette.

1920: The spitball is outlawed and, though nobody will admit it, the live ball is introduced. The era of scientific hitting comes to an abrupt end; Ruth hits 54 home runs for the Yankees.

1926: Wooden bleachers along the left-field line burn down, never to be replaced.

1933 to '34: In the off-season, the park is rebuilt, burns, and is rebuilt again. Concrete-and-steel grandstands replace the wooden ones, center field is shortened by about 100 feet, and a new Monster is built -- 37 feet high, with a concrete base and an upper section of tin sheeting over a lumber frame. The 10-foot mound in left field is shaved down.

1936: The Monster is topped with a net to keep home-run balls from raining onto Lansdowne Street.

1940: Bullpens are built in right-center field, shortening the distance by 20 feet so Ted Williams can hit more home runs. For some reason, Williams hits eight fewer than he did in 1939.

1946: The Sox commit 10 errors in losing the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3.

1947: Light towers are added so the Sox can play at night. The Monster is painted green.

1967: The Sox lose the Series to the Cardinals, again 4-3.

1975: Carlton Fisk hits a game-winning home run over the Green Monster to give the Sox a stirring victory in game six of the World Series. The Cincinnati Reds, however, win game seven and the title. Fred Lynn crashes hard into the concrete outfield wall, leading the Sox to add padding in 1976.

1976: The current Monster, made of hard plastic, is installed. So is an electronic scoreboard.

1984: Roof suites are added.

1986: The Sox . . . you know what the Sox do.

1988: The 600 Club luxury section is added, changing the wind patterns at Fenway. From now on, the park is no longer such a right-handed-power-hitter's nirvana.

Insider baseball

Tom Scocca can be reached at tscocca[a]phx.com.