Fenway Park Day by Day: The First Hundred Years

If you’re like some fans in New England (and beyond – for years there was a Red Sox fan group in Anchorage which even offered t-shirts reading “Far from Fenway”), you probably wake up every day thinking to yourself, “I wonder what happened at Fenway Park on this day in years gone by.” OK, probably there aren’t that many people who wonder that. But ever since Ed Walton’s original book This Day in Boston Red Sox History, there have been a plethora of other such books for various teams. It was my honor to be able to update Ed’s 1978 book with my own Day By Day with the Boston Red Sox, which Rounder Books published in 2006. That book ran to over 600 pages – and I’ve kept updating my file ever since, adding another six seasons since then. This book is more manageable since I’ve limited it only to events at Fenway Park. First of all, that removed the first 11 years of the franchise (1901-11) when the team played at the Huntington Avenue Grounds. Secondly, it moved almost precisely half the games of the succeeding 100 seasons – since they were road games. But there was a lot of great stuff that did happen at Fenway, and I hope this book will be enjoyable. There were moments of exultation, and moments of depression. Maybe more of the latter, but we’re tough. We’re Red Sox fans. We can take it. We’re stronger for it.