Dad visits Fenway Park

Aiya...

If you are not careful, you could walk right past and not know it. It was warm, clear April afternoon when my Dad and I spotted the pine green paint of the old building on Yawkey street. Crossing onto Van Ness, I took as many low resolution pictures as I could. There is something about one hundred year old stadiums you can't find in modern sports palaces of today. I'm not talking about the history, particular moments, or players that made these theaters roar. Rather, it is the smell.


Dad asked if this was the place Babe Ruth built. I looked at him like he was crazy, and then shook my head. "Wrong place" I said to him, and we continued on. There are pennants numbered with specific years on the west side of Fenway Park facing the row of Pro Shops and sweat shacks across the street. Numbers such as 2007, 2004, and 1918 are printed on red flags, but other numbers like 1946, 1975, and 1986 are on navy flags. I stopped at 1986 to take a picture; it's a bad one...I think I have it somewhere on my camera.

Before stepping onto Brookline, I told Dad "I suppose I would need to choose between Red Sox and Yankees now." My older sister went to Fenway Park many times since moving to Boston. However, she lived in New York before this, and when the Jays started losing she started supporting the Yankees. "Never wear a Yankees hat in Boston" She told me once, "Under ANY circumstance". I wore my Pittsburgh Pirates jersey at the time, and I did receive some looks. "These guys sure hold a grudge." I said to Dad as we walked along the outside of the Green Monster, "The 1903 World Series was only 107 years ago, but they will not let things go." I checked my camera again before taking another picture of Bostonians walking up and down the terraces of the left-field wall. Dad shook his head as we looked up at the structure, and said "it's not that tall."

Before reaching Lansdowne, I spot a sign...
"No charge?" I utter. Without asking, I run inside the restaurant and find the nearest and largest mesh fence leading to the inside of Fenway Park. At first, I just stood there and looked; almost like that first night out to sea from Buenos Aires, only it is daylight and no stars are out (not even the baseball kind). I pulled out my camera and started recording a video; at first I take shots of the stadium behind the fence, and then try fitting the lens through the mesh capture the whole of the stadium: The Green Monster, the stand behind home plate, the championship pennants, the red coloured seats, and that pine green around the ballpark. I was so happy I wanted the whole world in my hands, even if Dad said "the place is too small", and how "television makes it larger than it actually is". The manager said he needed to close the fence because flies were buzzing into his eatery, nevertheless it was time to leave.


Dad asks if the guy in the picture up ahead is Lou Gehrig. I look at the picture of Ted Williams and do a vintage "Jean-Luc Picard" facepalm. Then, Dad asked me "Who is Ted Williams?" Double Facepalm.

That was only last Tuesday when Dad and I went to Fenway Park. He still asks questions about sports, and I answer some and facepalm others. Much like that old ballpark in Boston, I doubt he will ever change.
That's him walking down the street beside Fenway Park, by the way.