An Inside Look at Fenway Park
The Brewers continue their three-game series with the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park tonight. Since Interleague Play began, the Brewers don’t visit Boston very often, so it is always a treat to visit this historic ballpark.
Today, I took a tour of the ballpark along with Brewers Director of Media Relations, Mike Vassallo; Radio Play-by-play announcer, Joe Block; Radio Producer, Kent Sommerfeld, and his wife, Karen; Brewers.com beat writer, Adam McCalvy; FOX Sports Wisconsin host Craig Coshun and FOX Sports Wisconsin stats guru Brian Mikolajek.
The tour was organized by the Red Sox PR crew: Kevin Gregg, Abby DeCiccio and John Shestakofsky, something they like to do for teams who don’t visit Boston regularly. The tour was a definitely a treat. I have been fortunate to visit and tour Fenway Park before and it is an enjoyable baseball experience every time.
Enjoy the gallery below of great photos and some fun facts we learned along the way.
I learned a number of other fun-facts throughout the tour.
- The visiting and home clubhouse used to both be on the first base side of the field. In the 1950s, the visiting clubhouse was moved behind the visiting dugout on the third base side.
- The ballpark played host to NFL games in the 1930s. The Boston Redskins (now Washington Redskins) played home games here. The Boston Patriots (now the New England Patriots) games here in the 1960s as a member of the AFL. The field ran east-west with the end zones ending up in rightfield and by the visiting dugout.
- The ballpark is on the National Register of Historic Places.
- The ten-year renovation/preservation plan for Fenway is nearing completion. While there will always be things to maintain and update, most of the main projects that the current ownership group started have been completed. Fenway Park has added about 3,000 seats in the last ten years. The changes have allowed the ballpark to enter a new era, while at the same time, preserve its historical charm.
Thanks again to the Red Sox PR staff for accommodating our tour this afternoon. It was a great time and I can’t wait to come back as a fan. If you are a baseball fan, I highly recommend getting here to visit this gem. It is a baseball experience that is unmatched.
The Brewers had a great win yesterday at Fenway Park, let’s hope for another win tonight and one more tomorrow!
— JOHN
john.steinmiller@brewers.com
