The WORST World Series: 1918

 

Before the start of the 1918 "Worlds Series" there was joy in Boston and Chicago, but little interest elsewhere.  Due to the war in Europe many baseball fans viewed each team with cynicism, ballclubs that crassly tried to buy pennants with cash with players who dodged military service while their countrymen gave their lives on the battlefield.    

Still, the Cubs were a powerhouse.  Anchored by Jim “Hippo” Vaughn, the Cubs had the best pitching in the National League and were no less successful in the batter’s box, featuring a lineup that feasted in war-depleted pitching staffs.  Despite the presence of players like Babe Ruth on the Boston roster, most observers, like Red Sox partisan Paul Shannon of the Boston Post, gave the edge to the Cubs. 

Shannon was right.  The Cubs should have won the 1918 World Series.  But as modern observers know, in regard to the Cubs, “should win” and “won” are not part of the same language.  Although virtually everything tilted the Cubs way, it would not be enough.  They would squander every advantage, beginning with their home field edge.  With the series scheduled to begin with three games in Chicago, Cubs ownership got greedy and asked the White Sox for permission to use Comiskey Park rather than Weeghman Park due to its larger seating capacity.  Both the home field advantage and the offensive advantage they gained from their home park were gone. 

Both clubs had plenty of time to prepare and set their pitching rotation for the series did not begin until September 4, almost a week after the end of the war-shortened regular season. 

The big surprise in game one was that the Sox chose to start Babe Ruth on the mound.  He’d won only 13 games in 1918 and the smart money believed the Cubs were much better against left-handed pitching.  But Ruth had been Boston’s best pitcher down the stretch and due to Ruth’s recent trouble hitting left-handers, Sox manager Ed Barrow didn’t intend to use him in the Series in the outfield.  Instead he decided to go with minor league journeyman – and right-handed hitter – George Whiteman.

Neither Hippo Vaughn nor Ruth was sharp at the start of game one, but neither team scored until   the fourth inning, when Boston finally broke through.  Dave Shean walked, and after a botched sacrifice attempt, George Whiteman and first baseman Stuffy McInnis both singled, scoring Sheen and giving Boston a 1-0 lead. 

In a contest the Tribune termed “monotonous,” that was it.  The Cubs mounted a mild threat in the sixth, only to have Whiteman end the rally with a running catch to secure Boston’s 1-0 victory. 

Game two was far more engaging as Cubs coach Otto Knabe provided the entertainment, taunting Red Sox coach Heinie Wagner.  After Boston went down in the second inning, instead of returning to the Boston bench, Wagner came looking for Knabe. 

Before anyone realized what was happening, Wagner was in the Cub dugout throwing haymakers.  The Cubs folded in over the two men before Boston‘s reinforcements could cut across the diamond and come to Wagner’s rescue.  After some delay, Wagner emerged muddied but not bloodied from the confrontation.  Baseball Magazine later reported that “fans who could see it [the fight] declared that when they heard two Germans were fighting, they merely encouraged them to beat each other up.”

The battle did ratchet up the intensity of the Series, and the rest of game two was played as if baseball were a contact sport.  In the Chicago third, the Cubs broke through against Sox pitcher Joe Bush.  With one out, Freed Merkle walked, and then Charlie Pick laid down a bunt and beat the throw to first.  Third baseman Charlie Deal popped up a failed bunt attempt, but Bill Killefer proceeded to double to score one run and then Tyler helped himself, driving a single to center that scored Pick and Killefer.  Boston threatened in the ninth when Strunk and Whiteman hit back-to-back triples, but Tyler held on for the 3-1 win as Ruth stayed on the Boston bench and the Cubs knotted the Series.

A victory in game three was critical for Chicago.  Manager Fred Mitchell brought back Vaughn on one day’s rest, while Boston countered with submariner Carl Mays.

Vaughn pitched well, but Mays was even better.  In the fourth Boston scratched across two runs after Vaughn hit Whiteman and the Red Sox added four singles, not one of which was hit hard.  Chicago’s best chance came in the bottom of the inning when Dode Paskert nearly hit a home run only to have George Whiteman, Boston’s best player in the Series, grab the ball out of the front row.  The Cubs scored one run in the fifth on a couple of hits, but May stopped them after that.  The Red Sox won, 2-1.

A few hours later, at eight o’clock, both teams boarded the same train for the twenty-seven hour trip to Boston.  Normally, the two clubs would have had little to do with one another, particularly after the bad blood in game two, but the long journey caused tempers to cool and players from both clubs finally had a chance to look over some documents distributed by the National Commission.  By the time they reached Boston they were spitting blood.  Baseball’s ruling National Commission had changed the distribution of World Series money.  Each team was playing for a whole lot less than they thought they were. 

Before 1918 the players had shared 60% of Series receipts but in 1918, the Commission, acting on behalf of the owners, changed the distribution to only 55.75% of the receipts, and then only from the first four games.  That amount would also be shared with the players on the teams that finished second, third and fourth and players would be forced to “donate” another ten percent to war charities.  By the time the two team reached Boston the player of both teams were united and talking about going on strike.  The next morning player representatives told the commission that they had no intention of playing and requested a formal meeting to air their grievances.  They were put off and reluctantly decided to play game four.

The Cubs, in particular, had reason to play.  The night before, as the train chugged its way into Boston, schedule game four starter Babe Ruth had decided to have a little fun punching out straw hats on the train. 

Ruth either miscalculated or punched through a hat and straight into the steel wall of the train, or else someone resisted and Ruth responded with a real swing that missed its target and lost a battle with that same wall. The result was that the middle finger of Ruth’s pitching hand was swollen to twice its normal size.  If he was hampered by the finger, or couldn’t pitch at all, the advantage tilted toward the Cubs.

Ruth had the finger drained but convinced Barrow he could pitch.  He started the game with the finger stained with iodine. 

He could pitch, but just barely.  Unfortunately for the Cubs, Boston’s defense kept bailing him out.  Then in the fourth, after Cubs pitcher Lefty Tyler walked Shean and Whiteman, Ruth came up with two outs.

He fell behind 3-0 then watched two strikes pass by as if he realized he had only one good swing left and was determined to wait for the perfect pitch. 

He got it.   As Boston Post reporter Paul Shannon wrote, “A report like a rifle shot rang through the park.  Twenty-five thousands rose as one man, and while the bleachers shrieked in ecstasy, the Cubs right fielder [Flack] taken unawares dashed madly for the center field stands.”  Shean and Whiteman scored easily and Ruth slid into third for a triple.  Boston led, 2-0.

But Ruth still wasn’t right and in the top of the eighth, the Cubs finally got to him, tying the game and ending Ruth’s scoreless inning streak in Series at 29 2/3 innings.

Cubs’ pitcher Phil Douglas took over for Tyler in the eighth.  Boston catcher Wally Schang led off with a single and advanced to second when a Douglas pitch got away from catcher Bill Killefer.  Harry Hooper then laid down a bunt, which Douglas fielded and promptly threw away, and Schang came around with the winning run.  The Sox hung on and now the Cubs trailed in the Series three games to one.

As soon as the game ended, however, the players again took up their grievance with the National Commission.  Harry Hooper, Heinie Wagner, Leslie Mann and Bill Killefer, went together to the Copley Plaza. Once again the Commission brushed them off like piece of lint.    Later that evening, however, they decided to try to meet once more with the commission the next morning.  Unless the issue was resolved, they were determined not to play game five.

By this time word of the snafu was becoming public knowledge.  The press was four-square on the side of management – the Chicago Daily Journal referred to the players as the “bolsheveki of baseball.”

The next morning the team of revolutionaries went to the Copley Plaza once again.  The Commission again sent them away, saying they could all meet again after game five.

The players knew better.  If Boston won game five, the point was moot - the Series would be over and there would be no meeting.  The representatives went to the ballpark and explained the situation to players of both teams.  They were all in agreement. As far as they were concerned, there would be no game five.

Meanwhile, the commission celebrated their victory over the players in the bar of the Copley Plaza.  But as game time approached and some twenty thousand fans began to pour into Fenway Park, the players remained in the clubhouse, on strike.  When the Commission found out they gulped down one last drink and hustled over to the ballpark.  At 2:45 the commissioners met Hooper, Dave Shean, Mann and Killefer in the umpire’s room as a handful of sportswriters squeezed in behind them.  The players were ready for a sober discussion of the issues.   The commission was incapable of having a sober discussion about anything.

American League president Ban Johnson, drunk and in tears, was in no condition to negotiate anything.  He played the patriotic card, imploring the players to take the field for “the soldiers in the stands,” some of whom were, in fact, now on the field, pressed into service to try to prevent the crowd from rioting.

Reporter Nick Flately of the Boston American captured the tone perfectly in his story about the meeting.  According to his description, Commissioner Gerry Hermann piped in, saying, “’Let’s arbitrary this matter Mister Johnson,’ then he launched forth into a brilliant exposition of the history of baseball’s governing board.  Expert reporters took notes for a while, then quit, befuddled.”

So did the players.  There was no sense arguing with three men who were seeing double and slurring every word.  Boston Mayor John Fitzgerald, president Kennedy’s grandfather, took the field and announced to the crowd that the players “have agreed to play for the sake of the public and the wounded players in the stands.”

The crowd booed lustily, and when the players took the field they fielded insults from every direction. Some fans just left, disgusted.

Then came the game.  Boston fans took their anger over the strike out on the Red Sox, cheering Cub pitcher Hippo Vaughn the whole game, and the Red Sox responded by making outs early and often.  The Cubs scored a run in the second and two in the eighth, and just over one hour and forty minutes after it started, game five was history.  The Cubs won, 3-0 and trailed the Red Sox three games to two.  The Chicago press thought it was a great game while Boston sports writers were less impressed and all but wrote that the Red Sox had played to lose.

The end result was that no one cared anymore who won Series anyway.  The strike, which the public didn’t understand, soured the public on the Series.     Fenway Park was only half full on the afternoon of September 11 when Tyler, on one days’ rest, squared off opposite Carl Mays.

There was little glory for the Cubs or anyone else not named George Whiteman.  The journeyman hit a line drive in the second that scored two runs and in the eighth inning made a tumbling catch to save the game.  He left the field to a rousing ovation with a wrenched neck as Ruth trotted out as a meaningless defensive replacement.  One inning later the Boston Red Sox were champions of the world and the Cubs looked to next year.  Most fans yawned at the result. There was only a small subdued on field celebration by the Red Sox as a few hundred die-hard cheered them on. By the end of the series only a few dozen fans were showing up on the streets outside the Chicago newspaper office to watch the game being replayed on the big board.  The Daily Journal reported glumly that “interest was plainly at zero…baseball is not an essential during a time of war.” 

George Whiteman, not Ruth, was heralded as the hero of the Series.  The right-handed hitter had feasted on Tyler and Vaughn while catching everything hit in his direction. 

Depending on which newspaper one believed, the Cubs earned either $574.62 or $671.09 each, while the champion Red Sox took in $1001.52, and each still had to donate a portion to the war charities.  Both figures were the lowest in Series history, as was the total of nineteen runs scored in the Series, ten by the Cubs and only nine for Boston.

Perhaps the worst World Series in history was over.  Baseball took punitive action against the players over the strike and withheld their World Series medallions, the equivalent of today's rings, until 1993. At the time no one could envision that decades later Boston fans would look back on it with nostalgia, for the Red Sox would go 86 years before winning another championship and that Cubs fans, who are still waiting, would one day look back at 1918 as one of the first of many lost opportunities. 

Within days after ended it ended it was almost as if the Series had not been played at all.  Soldiers returning from Europe carried with them Spanish influenza and a few days after the Series scores of people began dying in Boston as the pandemic took hold.   Among its victims would be Series umpire Silk O’Loughlin, and several Boston sports writers who covered the Series.

The disease spread rapidly to Chicago, probably due to the return of soldiers to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, or, perhaps, by fans, sportswriters and players returning to Chicago from Boston.  In October alone more than ten thousand Chicagoans would die of the disease, and by the time the pandemic finally ended in the spring of 1919, more than a half million Americans were dead, 20,000 in Chicago and another 6,000 in Boston.

There was some good news, however.  On November 11, the Great War came to an end. In 1919 baseball would soon return to normal.  Unfortunately for the Red Sox and Cubs, “normal” no longer meant what it once did.  Another World Series victory would prove elusive for both teams. 

 

Adapted from Red Sox Century and The Cubs, copyright Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson. @GlennStout, www.glennstout.net

 

 

The Mess of History

When writing history – even of baseball - the challenge is to stay true and authentic. That means refusing to place into the historical record anything known to be false or inauthentic, for any reason. Every writer of history must find in their research enough information to recreate the experience, and then present that information in a way that engages the reader.


The guidelines for this are pretty clear; don’t make stuff up or intentionally misrepresent the facts. While it is not always possible to uncover every piece of information that might be pertinent and the veracity of each piece of information may never be completely known, the research process demands that one makes a concerted effort to do so anyway and never succumb to the temptation to fill in the blanks with fiction. While historians may differ in their conclusions historical disagreement is far different from making things up to account for gaps of research or to make a re-telling more colorful and lively.


Unfortunately in recent years the clear line between was is acceptable and what is not has become blurred, and many of book titles that have most egregiously blurred that line have been commercial and critical successes. Increasingly, I read historical accounts of baseball and other sports history that I view with the same suspicions I do the achievements of a hitter on steroids. Too often I encounter books that create dialogue that did not exist and invent entire scenes that never took place. Readers, unfortunately, are usually oblivious to the use of these methods. Over time they learn to expect a certain level of detail that, even though it is false, makes work that adheres to a higher standard somehow seem lacking.


This kind of historical abuse is becoming more and more and more commonplace. I am aware of one current title’s success that is due in part to the author’s ability to put thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of his subjects, something I only know because my own research has covered the same ground. I wish this experience was uncommon, or confined to the genre of sports. Unfortunately it is not. Many of the most successful books of history recently published – including some best sellers now considered classics – make use of these same techniques.


The damage done by this approach is profound. Not only does the true historical record become murky as subsequent accounts repeat spurious information, but the commercial success of such titles places ever more pressure on the writer of history to indulge in these same practices.


I know this is true from my own experience. Several years ago, while writing about a non-sports topic, an editor strongly suggested I include scenes and impressions and dialogue the editor knew did not exist. The clear implication was if did so my work would be more successful and make more money. When I refused the editor was shocked and made it clear other writers had not resisted similar requests.


Real history does not often unfold like scenes from a movie script, all crisp dialogue and clarity. It is more often a mess, a mass of often confusing and apparently contradictory evidence. The task for the writer of history is to guide the reader through the unkempt rooms of the past, finding order and logic and truth in chaos, anticipating questions and providing answers before they are even formed, so at the end of the experience the reader sees clearly what was previously obscure.


As I have embarked on historical projects like the history of a team, a biography of an athlete, or even the story of a ballpark, I try to keep this in mind, believing that the truth always tells the best story, and that if I do my job well and completely it needs no embellishment or added drama. Fortunately, so far my experiences like the one I described above have been the exception, and readers have generally responded with a generosity I find refreshing.


That was why it was particularly gratifying earlier this spring when Fenway 1912 was awarded the Seymour Medal, named after Harold and Dorothy Seymour, baseball’s pre-eminent historians, by the Society of American Baseball Research as the best book of biography or history for 2011. That experience was repeated again last week when SABR also awarded Fenway 1912 the Larry Ritter Award, named after the author of the seminal oral history The Glory of Their Times, as the best book of the Deadball Era, making Fenway 1912 the only title ever to win both such awards.


It’s nice to know someone is still paying attention.




The column originally appears in Boston Baseball July 2012. For more information see Glenn’s website at www.glennstout.net

On the Death of Ted Williams

[NOTE: This is a reprint of a column I wrote on deadline following Ted Williams' death for Boston Baseball. I also think it says a few things about Fenway Park. Copyright Glenn Stout 2012. All rights reserved.]


I heard a rumor, but I don’t believe it for a minute. Ted Williams isn’t dead.]

Close your eyes for a minute and look. Do you see it? All green and gorgeous? Ted’s house – Fenway Park. Mid-summer, in the sunshine. Ted Williams isn’t dead. He’s everywhere here.

I’ll show you. See up there, way, way, way up in right field? See the red seat? Ted’s still there — section 42, row 37, seat 21 – 502-feet from home plate. In 1946 he hit a home run that landed there. Well, sort of. It put a hole in the straw hat of an engineer from Albany.

Now look up a little farther. The Jimmy Fund sign. No one’s ever done more for the Jimmy Fund than Ted. Even when Ted was getting booed and fighting with the press and complaining about everything, that all stopped when it came time to go to a hospital and see a sick kid. See, when Ted was a kid and his mother spent all her time with the Salvation Army and his dad was away even more, Ted just about had to raise his little brother, Danny, all by himself. Then Ted ran away to play baseball and Danny got in trouble and then got cancer and died. Ted never said no to the Jimmy Fund.

Now look over to your right, on the façade of the roof. 9-4-1-8-42. The way it was before they changed it. The way it should be now.

Everybody knows number 9. That’s Ted. First, as ever.

He’s right next to number 4, Joe Cronin, Ted’s first manager. Ted drove Cronin and everyone else crazy in his first spring training. He never shut up and he never stopped thinking about hitting. But he was too young. When Cronin sent him down to the minors and a few vets gave Ted the business on his way out the door, Ted vowed he’d come back and make more than all of them put together. He was right, and he did.

Then there’s number 1, Bobby Doerr, who played with Ted in the PCL, the only guy on the team who could calm Ted down. When Ted talks about “my guys,” he means Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky. His guys.

And number 8, Yaz, Ted’s successor out in left field. At his first camp with the Sox Ted gave Yaz a long complicated lecture about hitting. When Ted finished and walked away, Yaz turned to a reporter, almost shaking, and admitted, “I can’t understand half of what he says . . . He scares me.” And then there’s number 42, Jackie, who should’ve played with Ted and would’ve if the men who ran the Red Sox had been half as smart as Ted was. You know what Ted said when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965, don’t you? He said, “Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel. Not just to be as good as somebody else, but to be better. This is the nature of man and the name of the game. I hope some day Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren’t given the chance.”

That’s right, that’s what he said. Ted Williams was the first guy, the very first guy to bring this up. And this was in 1966, when it wasn’t cool or p.c. to talk about such things, but he did anyway because that’s the way Ted was. He just thought it was right and he said it. Five years later the Hall of Fame took Ted’s advice.

Now look down a little lower. That’s right, look at the bullpens, where a lot of pitchers got a lot of extra work because of Ted. Tom Yawkey had them built in the winter after Ted’s rookie year so he could hit more home runs. Didn’t work, at least in 1940, when Ted tried too hard and didn’t hit a single home run there. The press called it Williamsburg, but the name never really took. It made the fans mad, if you can believe it. They thought Ted was getting special treatment. They were right of course. Ted’s always been special.

See the awning above the bench where the Red Sox pitchers sit? Out toward center field? Yeah. That where Ted’s last home run, number 521, the one that made John Updike famous, landed. Smacked it off Baltimore’s Jack Fisher in the eighth inning on September 28, 1960. Ted didn’t stop at home, didn’t tip his cap, just crossed home plate and ran into the dugout and sat there by himself.

Notice how big right field is? The biggest in baseball. That’s where Ted played his rookie year, 1939, all arms and legs and enthusiasm. Between pitches, he’d stand out there and practice his swing. When the fans cheered him, he’d pluck hit hat off his head by that little button and wave it like mad. Oh god, the fans. They loved him at first, and truth to be told, Ted loved them. That’s why he got so damn mad later, when he got booed. You have to care about something to get angry about it, and Ted cared.

Now look out to left field. That’s where they moved Ted in 1940, to save his eyes. It worked, and Ted learned to play the wall when it was part tin, part wood, part concrete, when it had dead spots like the parquet floor at the Boston Garden and the scoreboard was bigger and had National League scores, too. Ted played the wall well. This was before it was called the Green Monster. This was when it was covered with ads for Gem Blades and Calvert Gin.

Oh, but the fans in left. With the wall catching the sound behind him, Ted could hear everything they said. And the fans were so close, they could see Ted’s ears turn red. The thing’s they’d say – God, he’d get mad! But you know what? That’s what drove him, that’s what got him going. The things they said and stuff those writers, the Knights of the Keyboard, the stuff they wrote. Every word just made him madder. And then Ted would pick up the bat, he’d pick up the bat and walk to home plate and dig in and look out to the pitcher, another guy trying to make him look bad, and Ted would dig in, and then, and then . . .

You can’t help but look to home. That’s where Ted really lived, in that little 4×6 box on the first base side of home plate, focused on that invisible rectangle exactly seventeen inches wide above home plate from the his knee to his shoulder, and the square inch or so on his bat where he tried to hit the ball every time. Remember the picture in Ted’s book, The Science of Hitting, with all the different colored baseballs in the strike zone with Ted’s batting average on them when he swung at those pitches? When I first read that book when I was a kid, I thought Ted actually saw all those colored baseballs coming at him, and that he picked out the one’s with highest number to hit, and that’s why he was so good. Maybe he did he did see them.

Because no one else in baseball history ever spent more time at bat, saw more pitches, cursed more or swung more than Ted Williams. Forget about his off the chart 20-10 eyesight or the one-in-a-million reflexes. Ted Williams was about practice. Said so himself. Listen: “There’s never been a kid who hit more baseballs than Ted Williams.”

Think about that for a minute, because Ted might be right. When he was a kid, a little kid, he spent hours and hours at the playground, swinging a bat. And he never stopped, not really. I think that anytime Ted was doing anything else he loved, like fishing or flying, he was, in a way, still just swinging the bat, concentrating, looking for a strike, tuning out the world and focusing on only one thing, the only thing that mattered, what he was trying to do right now.

That’s the first, best, and only lesson of hitting right there. Hell, it’s the only lesson of doing anything.

Can’t you see him? Can’t you see him swing?

Ted Williams isn’t dead. Close your eyes, and there he is again, bigger than life.

Number 9. Swinging. Kissing it goodbye and walking down the street.

The greatest hitter who ever lived.

Wonder of the World

Good thing they’ve got Fenway.

Over the course of this offseason I’ve traveled thousands of miles speaking about Fenway Park with fans all over the country, and along the way I’ve learned a few things that I found quite surprising. One is that, although there are a fair number Red Sox fans out there, they are not quite as pervasive as they were three or four or five years ago. Not so long ago the pre-distressed and faded Sox cap was ubiquitous no matter where one went anywhere in the country, as impossible to avoid in airports and train stations as Hare Krishnas once were.

But in my travels this off season Sox hats and other paraphernalia were strictly a regional phenomenon. They are almost nonexistent in my corner of Vermont and do not begin to show up in any numbers until one reaches either Burlington or New Hampshire. Even then, once one travels through Massachusetts, the fade begins as soon as one crosses the Connecticut River. I still saw a few in New York, but elsewhere, in Pennsylvania, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio and even nether reaches like Arizona, Sox hats were as rare as Yankee caps in the bleachers.

Another observation is that after I got done speaking about Fenway Park, although Sox fans wanted to chat, they did not want to discuss this team, think at all about last year, and didn’t have a kind thing to say about anyone on who worked at Yawkey Way. They’re ticked off, not just about the beer and chicken and the colossal September collapse, but about the whole hoary ball of wax. I got nostalgia, but not for 2007 and 2004. Instead people wanted to talk about the 1990s and 1980s, when the Red Sox still seemed unique and different and were in many ways much more approachable than they are today. Once upon a time, the Red Sox were different from other franchises, and not just because they hadn’t won a World Series in generations. Now there seems to be a general consensus that apart from the laundry the Sox might as well be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a fantasy team made of money. I can’t remember a single old lady gushing to me about Dustin Pedroia or Jacoby Ellsbury, anyone asking if I thought Daniel Bard could make the transition from the bullpen, or even if I thought Carl Crawford was a bum or who should play shortstop. The Red Sox didn’t seem essential anymore.

The most significant observation will be obvious all year; Fenway Park is the best thing this team has going for them. While there are undoubtedly a lot of Red Sox fans I can say with utter confidence that there are a lot more fans of Fenway Park. No matter where I went after I finished speaking and was signing books three or five or ten fans would sidle up and say, sotto voce, “You know I’m really a fan of (fill in the blank – Yankees, Dodgers, football or Beyonce),” and then, voice rising to audible again, “but I LOVE Fenway Park.”

Then something remarkable would happen. These fans of things other than the Red Sox and Red Sox fans would start talking to each other and over a few words realize that they were not in opposition actually but bound together by this place. Who won and who lost mattered a lot less than when they saw their first game, where they sat, who they went with and how much they paid. Most of the time, in fact, people couldn’t remember which team won.

Yet they could remember how Fenway Park looked and smelled and how the ballpark suddenly just appear from nowhere as they walked down Beacon Street or Ipswich, and what the weather was and who they sat next to and what they ate. Most importantly, however, is that they remembered how it made them feel, which was different that any place on the planet they had ever been before or would be again. To all these people Fenway Park is nothing less than one of the wonders of the world, equal in stature to the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu or the Pyramids. And that is why, despite the obstructed views and still-too-small seats, the ungodly prices and the embarrassment of a team brought down by beer and chicken, the stands are still full of pilgrims.

Fenway Park, one hundred years old and more important now than ever, is the reason. People come here not for the game or the team, but for the continuing wonder of the place and the way it brings them together for a moment as one, regardless of the score.

Glenn Stout is the author of the Boston Globe bestseller Fenway 1912. Those interested in having Glenn speak about Fenway Park can contact him thru his website, www.glennstout.net.

The End of Fenway Park

As I have travelled New England and the Northeast promoting Fenway 1912, one of the questions I am most often asked is about the future of Fenway. Although I have my own suspicions in regard to how the franchise might one day decide to dispose of Fenway in favor of a new ballpark, and the question of seat size in the grandstand is an apparently insurmountable obstacle moving forward, in the long run such questions, which presuppose that Fenway remains standing, might be moot.

Blame it on 1755. On November 18 of that year, at 4;30 a.m., and earthquake with an epicenter about 25 miles of Cape Ann, struck the northeast. The most powerful ever recorded in the area, the 6.0 to 6.3 quake was felt from Halifax, Nova Scotia to South Carolina and as far inland as Lake Champlain.

In Boston, some 1,300 of a total of 1,600 chimneys were toppled, providing work for masons for months. Significantly, most of the damage took place where buildings had been constructed on so called “infill”, reclaimed land along the harbor and other areas Mother Nature intended to be either wetlands or completely underwater.

Oops.

Far more significant areas of Boston are built today on reclaimed lands, and a similar quake would cause extensive damage, particularly to buildings constructed for than forty or fifty years ago and featuring significant use of brick. In 1990 a study by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency estimated financial losses at between $4 billion and $5 billion

That would be Fenway Park.

Constructed on the edge of what was once a tidal marsh, the land beneath Fenway, if subjected to a major earthquake, would almost certainly begin to liquefy and become unstable. A sizable earthquake, even one not as strong as the quake of 1755, would almost certainly cause significant damage to Fenway Park. A quake equal to or stronger than that of 1755 would almost certainly cause its destruction. The End of Fenway Park would come, not with a wrecking ball, but with a rumble.

Glenn Stout is the author of the best selling Fenway 1912.

Here's the Pitch

Fenway 1912 was just awarded the 2012 Seymour Medal by the Society for American Baseball Research as the best baseballbook of biography or history of 2011.

Below, from January 2008, is my pitch that sold the book, which came to me while I was driving to the dump one Saturday morning:

" . . .As you well know, Fenway Park opened in 1912 and the 2011 season represents the ballpark’s 100th season. There are certain to be a great number of book titles that will be published tied to this anniversary, primarily illustrative in nature. But I think I have a winner.

I propose to do a book called “1912: Fenway’s First Season and the First Great World Series.” The book would primarily be a narrative covering Boston’s 1912 season and the subsequent World Series versus the New York Giants, a best-of-seven affair that lasted eight games due to a tied game, amid charges of fixes and frauds, featuring pitchers Smoky Joe Wood and Christy Mathewson, New York Giants manager John McGraw and characters like Nuf Ced McGreevey of the Royal Rooters, Mayor John Fitzgerald, and Sport Sullivan, who would later become notorious for his involvement in the Black Sox scandal. The Series was a nail-biter that wasn’t decided until the tenth inning of the final (eighth) game, an absolute classic between two baseball behemoths.

But inside this narrative I will also tell the story – and stories – of Fenway Park. For example, when, on April 26, 1912, Red Sox first baseman High Bradley hit the first home run over what will one day be called the Green Monster, that will be a takeoff point for an in-depth look at the history of that feature. The famous pitching match-up of September 6, 1912 between Smoky Joe Wood and Walter Johnson, that featured both pitchers warming up just in front of the dugout, surrounded by fans, would serve as a take off point to discuss the history of Fenway’s bullpens. In this way I can simultaneously tell the story of the season and the World Series and the story of Fenway Park.

Timing will be everything for this book. Just as Red Sox Century took advantage of the Red Sox 100th season and beat other “anniversary” books to the punch by 6 months to a year, so will 1912. I envision a pub date of either Fall 2010 or Spring 2011 so the book is available during season 100 of Fenway, the start of the celebration – and in advance of the glut of Fenway titles.

That would mean a manuscript deadline of somewhere between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. Factoring in the time for research and writing, I think this book needs to be pitched in the next few months.

What do you think?

Coming Soon? The Residences at Fenway Park

On my recent book tour for the bestselling Fenway 1912, when people ask me what I think the future holds for Fenway Park, I answer “real estate.”

As I note in Fenway 1912, part of the reason Fenway Park was built where it was built in the first place was to spur real estate development. And when Fenway Park is replaced, real estate development will also be the issue.

Once the economic benefits of the Sox 100th anniversary are fully exploited by the Red Sox, and every last $250 brick and $75 book is sold [Note: my Fenway 1912 is about 1/3 the price . . . just sayin’], I expect that, ever so slowly, and likely in a whisper campaign to start, we will soon start hearing how Fenway Park, regrettably, is no longer “economically viable,” and that changing economic conditions in the game have rendered the park “economically obsolete” The Red Sox will announce, with regret, that they are reluctantly “exploring alternatives.”

This will take years, but if – or when - the team slips back into “also-ran” status and uses Fenway Park as the reason they can no longer afford to hire high-priced free agents, the inexorable move will have begun. It will not be quick and it will not be easy, because, exclusive of needed infrastructure, building a new ballpark in Boston will be a billion dollar undertaking. But billion dollar undertakings are what people like John Henry (or, if the Sox are sold, a guy like John Henry) do. Someday, and I think that day will come in the next two decades, the Red Sox will move from Fenway Park.

Note that I did not say that Fenway Park will be torn down, because it will not, but the Red Sox will no longer play there. Fenway will, however, be transformed.

I suspect some plan has already been scrawled on much more than a napkin. Remember, Mrs. Henry, Linda Pizzuti, has a background in real estate development and reportedly has been given some authority in this regard around Fenway Park. I think she and other real estate developers look at Fenway Park and don’t just see images of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams cavorting across the field. They look at the stands and see images of hotels and restaurants and condos with names like “The Residences at Fenway Park.”

I think the field itself – and the left field wall – will be preserved and maintained as they are. So will the façade on Yawkey way and perhaps a portion of the bleachers. But I expect the grandstand and most other seating areas to be converted into commercial, residential and hotel space, the most exclusive of which will offer views of the field. Perhaps a few seats will remain so the field can occasionally retain its’ “historic” use, but by and large I think the field will prove to be a private backyard and playground for the wealthy residents of the grandstand condos and hotels. I can envision nearly the entire stands being replaced by condos and hotels built within and on top of the existing structures, perhaps with some limited public access on the roof, so it will still be possible for the general public – at a price - to “experience” Fenway Park, or at least “see” it, and buy the ubiquitous souvenir. If they’re smart, they’ll include a public museum or something similar. Apart from that however, I see a luxury hotel and high priced condos – say 500 or so, starting at a couple of million dollars each, with the “best” going for upwards of $20 million. Fenway Park won’t be torn down, but it will become something it is increasingly – and sadly - becoming now; a place for the wealthy, the well-to-do and the connected. As I argue in Fenway 1912, Fenway Park has always evolved, which is why it remains today, and further evolution – not that I necessarily agree - is probably inevitable. Someday in the not too distant future, instead of saying “I’m going to Fenway,” and having everyone know you mean you are going to see the Red Sox play, you may well have to say something else.

And the next time you go to Fenway, remember that you’re not only watching a game on a field where Babe Ruth and Ted Williams once played, but perhaps from a viewpoint that some fatcat might one day enjoy while smoking a cigar and soaking in the Jacuzzi on his balcony.

Glenn Stout is the author of the best-selling Fenway 1912.

And The Winner Is . . .

Received the good news this week that in addition to being a Boston Globe best seller, the best selling Red Sox book of the season and one of the best selling baseball books of the year and a finalist for Spitball Magazine's Casey Award, that Fenway 1912 is a finalist for best baseball book of the year from a major magazine and a prestigious library association. Even better is the reaction from the readers I meet.

Requiem for the Bleachers

In the winter, when it is cold and dark and the snow is blowing and blotting out the far shore of Lake Champlain in northern Vermont, where I now live, and I think of summer and Fenway Park, I do not think of 1967 or 1986 or 2004 or any other season best known for either victory or loss.

I think of 1982.


I had graduated from college only a year earlier and had been in Boston only a few months. Unemployment was pressing ten percent and there was no work worth doing. For only a few pennies more than minimum wage I spent most days doing crossword puzzles and reading the Herald as a security guard at the Harvard Medical School.

But I lived in Kenmore Square, and that meant I was neighbors with Fenway Park. That winter and spring my walk back and forth to work each day brought me past Fenway. I would tip my cap, nod a ‘hello” and with each step summer was a little bit closer.

I had first seen Fenway Park sixteen years before, when I was all of eight years old. My mother was a native of Newfoundland and we were, somewhat improbably, driving there from Ohio on vacation. My father had piled us all into the old Pontiac station wagon one summer afternoon and then drove non-stop through the night. As the sun peaked over the horizon at dawn, we entered the outskirts of Boston. I remember nothing of the city as we drove through but the light towers of Fenway Park looming over a distant horizon.

I had never been to a major league ballpark before and held out little hope of doing so anytime soon. My traffic adverse father frowned on trips to either Cleveland or Cincinnati, much less Detroit or Pittsburgh or Chicago, the other cities within a reasonable driving distance from central Ohio, meaning I missed opportunities to see most of the classic ballparks of the age – Crosley Field, Tiger Stadium, Forbes Field, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park. Even Cleveland’s rusting Stalinesque Municipal Stadium, not really a ballpark at all, eluded me.

So when I moved to Boston nearly two decades later Fenway Park was both a reason for my pilgrimage and a destination. This time I promised myself would do more than drive by with my face pressed against the car window. I planned to spend the whole summer in my neighbor’s backyard, Fenway Park. . .

[You can read the rest of this essay appear in Richard Johnson's fine new heavily illustrated book about Fenway Park, Field of our Fathers. If you are going to buy one book on Fenway Park, make it Fenway 1912. But if you are buying two, please consider Richard's book. Esaay copyright Glenn Stout, 2011, all rights reserved.]

A Two-For

This morning Fenway 1912 was number #7 on the Boston Globe nonfiction hardcover bestseller list. The Best American Sports Writing 2011 was #8 on the nonfiction paperback list. http://http//www.boston.com/ae/books/blog/2011/10/boston_globe_be_84.html

I'll be back in Boston in December to sign more books, and at the Barnes and Noble in Burlington, Vermont on November 26.

For those readers in New York, I am scheduled to appear on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC the morning of November 4, and then will be doing a signing at the Red Sox bar, Professor Thom's, 219 second Aveue at 6:00pm that evening. This might be your only NY chance to have abook signed for the holidays.

Beer and chicken will be optional.

Just Sayin'

A review from one of the heavyweights:

“Stout, who edits the annual volume of “Best American Sports Writing,” takes as his subject not Fenway today. . . but Fenway as it came into existence in the winter of 1911-12 and as the scene of five games of the 1912 World’s Series (as it was then called), one of the most thrilling in the long history of what sportswriters call the Fall Classic. It’s a fascinating story, and Stout tells it very well.” - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

Yardley - a past winner of the Pulitzer Prize in criticism - makes you earn it, and doesn't often give such an unbridled thumbs up. I'll take it.

In fact, I love the fact that Yardley writes "It's a fascinting story and Stout tells it very well." For as I told Alex Belth in a recent interview [http://http//www.bronxbanterblog.com/2011/10/12/bronx-banter-interview-glenn-stout-2/]: "In prose, I aim for transparency. In many instances I almost want my actual writing to be completely invisible, so submissive to the story that you don’t notice it. I want the readers’ first reaction to be “great story” and then realize that it was the writing that delivered that experience."

That's exactly what Yardley recognized. It doesn't mean that I don't try to write without style, but there are times you just have to stay out of the way and let the story speak. I like to think there is some artistry in that.

Oh, Yeah! A Great Review (and small clarification)

In a terrific review in the Boston Globe and on Boston.com, the esteemed Chad Finn says some terrific things about Fenway 1912, all of which I appreciate. There is, however, one point he makes about the book that is not entirely correct - and perhaps I don't make the point clear enough in the text. So I thought it best to clarify in the event a reader might take issue.

He accurately notes that I make the point that Fenway's distinctive shape does not stem from the configuration of the surrounding streets. He then notes that the reason is because the dimensions of the Huntington Avenue Grounds were retained when Fenway was built.

The larger point is true, but not for the reasons cited. Fenway's distinctive shaped stems from the shape of the plot of land, - the park was built inward to use all the space and easily could have been symmetrical, or nearly so, had that been important. It was not, however, because the game, as it was played when Fenway was built, did not reach the borders of the property. Over time, the game grew out and the city grew in to surround the park, meaning that the shape of the field area (the basic footprint for which was accidentally created when new seats were built for the 1912 World Series) evolved over time.

Fenway was NOT built with the same dimensions as the Huntington Avenue Grounds. However, it WAS built to retain the same orientation in regard to the sun, which made Lansdowne St. the border in left field. Although no one at the time thought this confined left field in any meaningful way, the accidental result, over time, became Fenway's most distinctive feature - the Green Monster.

Thanks to Chad for a terrific and considerate review. Come see me tomorrow at 1:00 at the Back Bay Events center for the Boston Book Festival. See the review at the link below:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2011/10/14/book_focuses_on_the_history_of_fenway_park_as_it_prepares_to_turn_100/

On FENWAY 1912: A Conversation

How does your book differ from all the other Fenway books coming out to celebrate the ballparks’ anniversary?

Fenway 1912 breaks so much new ground it makes every other account of the building and construction of Fenway Park obsolete. In the context of the times I tell you precisely why Fenway looks the way it does, what architectural styles and influences played a part in its design, exactly how it was built, how it evolved during its first season and how Fenway Park contributed to the Red Sox 1912 world championship. Virtually none of this has appeared in any other book before. Unlike most others books about Fenway Park, which essentially tell a thumbnail history of the franchise through pictures of the ballpark, I tell the story of Fenway Park as an actual story, a drama that over the course of a little more than a year changed the history of the Red Sox and the City of Boston forever. Fenway Park is the main character, but there are many others – architect James E. McLaughlin, contractor Charles Logue, groundskeeper Jerome Kelley, and players like Tris Speaker, Smoky Joe Wood, Duffy Lewis, Royal Rooters like Nuf Ced McGreevey, team owner James McAleer and others. I think I’ve created a living history of Fenway Park.

Is your book illustrated?

Absolutely, there are plenty of photographs and illustrations in my book, most dating to its first season. All were carefully selected for their ability to reveal something new about Fenway Park. I am particularly excited about several period architectural drawings that I uncovered that will be a revelation to Red Sox fans. To the best of my knowledge, these have never been reprinted or even examined by anyone since 1912. I don’t think I am overstating things when I say that after reading Fenway 1912, fans will never be able to look at Fenway Park the same way again. I know I don’t – and I have attended hundreds of game at Fenway and have been writing about the history of this team for twenty-five years. And throughout the narrative I relate aspects of Fenway Park in 1912 to Fenway Park today, so fans can envision Fenway Park in 1912 within what exists today. Personally, I was stunned to discover in the course of my research that there was so much new information I was still able to uncover about a place that everyone thinks they already know everything about. It will be the one gift Sox fans will want this holiday season.

How were you able to discover so much new material?

Twenty-five years ago, on Fenway’s 75th anniversary, I wrote the official history of the park for the Red Sox yearbook. But when I began working on this book over three years ago I started from scratch, researching in period documents, newspaper accounts and other sources. I just don’t accept that something is true because it appeared in some book written decades later. And to do that takes time – literally years of research, months and months of searching through microfilm, old newspapers and magazines, census records, city directories, maps, and old books before I wrote a word. Let me put it to you this way – I think I did more research for Fenway 1912, telling the story of the creation and building of Fenway Park and the 1912 season, than I did for Red Sox Century, a book in which I told the entire history of the franchise.

So the entire book is about 1912, right? There’s nothing about Fenway Park since then?

Oh, not at all. When certain aspects of Fenway Park need further explanation – and when I uncovered exciting new information – I don’t hesitate to tell those stories. For example, when I discuss the left field wall, I track it through history. I uncover the day that the first fans sat where the “Green Monster” seats are today – it was in 1912! And I trace the history and first use of the phrase “Green Monster,” more precisely than anyone else ever has. That’s a great story, because the phrase was first used far earlier than most people realize, yet didn’t come into popular usage until, relatively speaking, quite recently. And here’s something else few people realize – Fenway Park wasn’t the first baseball field in Boston to be called “Fenway Park.” On occasion the Huntington Avenue Grounds, where the Red Sox played before Fenway Park was built, was itself called “the Fenway Park” due to its proximity to the Fens.


How do you manage to tell Fenway’s story while you also tell the story of the 1912 season and the 1912 World Series?

In a sense, that was the easy part of the book, because as I began to research the events of the 1912 season, I quickly realized that the personality of the ballpark was being revealed game by game, from things like the first home run hit over the left field wall (which most fans know was hit by Boston’s Hugh Bradley) to the first home run hit into the stands that was wrapped around the precursor to the “Pesky pole” in right field. Fenway Park had a dramatic impact on the fortunes of the Red Sox in 1912, and was a huge reason why a team that finished in fourth place in 1911 was able to run away with the pennant in 1912 – Tris Speaker emerged as a superstar and had an MVP season, Smoky Joe Wood, helped by some subtle changes no one else has ever recognized, went 34-5, a couple of rookie pitchers had the season of their lives. I point out precisely how Fenway Park provided the Red Sox with a huge advantage. Sort of by accident, they were perfect for the ballpark. Then, just before the World Series, while the Sox were on a road trip, Fenway Park underwent what I would still consider the most dramatic transformation in its history, as over a period of only a few weeks more than 10,000 seats were added, for the first time creating the familiar “footprint” that still remains, more or less, today. Then, during the 1912 World Series, a whole series of new quirks in Fenway’s personality were revealed.

Wait a minute, Fenway Park was changed during the 1912 season?

Absolutely. And before those changes were made it would have been almost unrecognizable to a contemporary fan. In a sense, the 1912 World Series both christened Fenway and capped things off. The Sox played the New York Giants of John McGraw and Christy Mathewson, and the fortunes of both teams swung back and forth wildly, often during the course of a single game. Series lasted eight games – one was tie – and the Series was marked by fights, arguments, threats of a player strike, charges of gambling, and an on-field riot by the fans. The full story of what took place during those eight games has never been told before because previous accounts failed to recognize the key role Fenway Park played in the Series. That element allowed me to being the Series to life, to put the reader in the stands and on the street, in the dugout and in the clubhouse.


What does Fenway Park mean to you?

It’s hard to put it in words, but in the foreword to the book I try. It’s very personal to me, and I think this is the best book I have ever written. When I was a kid I used to draw pictures of Fenway Park. I moved to Boston after college precisely because of Fenway Park and lived within walking distance of the park for all but the first few months I was in town. If it wasn’t for Fenway Park I may well have never become a working writer. Fenway Park is a place that can change your life – I know it changed mine. By writing Fenway 1912 I hope that in some small way I have repaid the debt I owe to the ballpark. Without Fenway Park, I am a different person, and I don’t think I’m the only one who can say that.

Glenn will be appearing at the Boston Book Festival at the Back Bay Events Center and signing books on October 15 @ 1:00 pm. See http://www.glennstout.net/ for more appearances.

TRIPLE PLAY

I am pleased to announce the near simultaneous publication of my next three books:
The Best American Sports Writing 2011, guest edited by Jane Leavy, series editor Glenn Stout, FENWAY 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Seasons and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year by Glenn Stout, and book three in my juvenile series "Good Sports" entitled Soldier Athletes, a Junior Library Guild selection (for more see www.goodsportsbyglennstout.com). I am proud to say that beginning in 1991 I have now written, edited or ghostwritten more than eighty books with sales in excess of two million copies.

Personally, I am most excited by FENWAY 1912, the definitive story of the building of Fenway Park the 1912 season and the 1912 World Series.[PS to Sox fans: In this book, they win.]

Three years ago I set out to write the definitive account of the creation, design, and building of Fenway Park and to allow the reader to experience Fenway Park in its first year and the Red Sox championship season of 1912. I make use of sources utilized by no other purported history of either Fenway Park or the 1912 season or World Series. I promise that this book will prove to be a revelation for even the most hard core fan of either the Red Sox or Fenway Park and makes all previous histories of the park completely obsolete. Fenway 1912 includes:

-Period architectural drawings dating from 1912 that have NEVER been used elsewhere or been reproduced. To my knowledge these are the only period drawings known to exist.

-A detailed construction history of the ballpark that includes not only the schedule of the construction, but a full explication of the construction methods used and how that impacted the 1912 season and the park you see today.

- A biography of Fenway architect James E. McLaughlin and builder Charles Logue.

- A discussion of the architectural influences that are the reason Fenway Park looks the way it does today.

- Detailed discussions on how the new ballpark affected the Red Sox and the 1912 World Series, and a dramatic and lively reconstruction of both the season and the Series, including the infamous contest between Joe Wood and Walter Johnson on September 4, 1912, perhaps the greatest pitching matchup in baseball history.

- Why the Green Monster exists, why it was built the way that it was, and why and when the name "Green Monster" came into use.

- How changes made to the ballpark over the course of the 1912 season determined the future evolution of Fenway.

- Detailed analysis of the 1912 season, including Joe Wood's remarkable 34-5 pitching campaign, and how two changes - one to his windup, and one an injury to another player - resulted in one of the greatest pitching performances in baseball history.

What the critics are saying:

“Best Baseball Book Ever. If you are a lifelong Red Sox fan, a lifelong Red Sox hater, a rabid baseballholic or merely a casual baseball fan, Glenn Stout's new book, Fenway 1912, is an amazing read into the birth of a ballpark, the 1912 Red Sox and the transition to the modern baseball era. His ability to weave together the tiniest detail and apparent minutiae into a rip-roaring page-turner that is hard to put down is simply amazing.

In the capable hands of Stout, Fenway 1912 promises to make all other books about Fenway’s construction and first season obsolete. While some sports histories are bone-dry and distant, Stout imbues his account with a unique vibrancy and a razor-sharp intelligence. I am amazed at the research that must have gone into this. Anyone involved in this project is discussed: groundskeeper, architect, coaches, owners, players. Even at 416 pages, this wasn’t boring and kept me reading even though I don’t follow baseball. This has got to be THE definitive work on this subject. I can’t imagine even a dissertation that could be more complete.

Fenway 1912 is a book that everyone who covers this team has to buy, and read, and keep handy, so that when people ask us where the bones are buried, we can look wise and have the answer at our fingertips. The author’s meticulous approach makes the book a valuable addition to baseball history. Stout does an excellent job of portraying the differences in the game between that era—when “the owners were the kings and the players lowly serfs”—and today. Throughout, Fenway Park, “a ballpark for the heart and soul,” shines as a beacon for America’s game.

Baseball diehards and historians, and of course Red Sox fans, will find much of interest in this paean to one of sport’s most famous venues. Stout’s knowledge of the sport and passion for the game certainly comes across in his writing, especially when he is uncovering little known details of this bygone era of baseball. The book is full of fun and informative anecdotes about Fenway’s past and present.

Stout has done the impossible: he has put an end to the seemingly bottomless genre that is Fenway Park books. We now need no more. We get not pomp and circumstance, but the bones and blueprint of a legendary ballpark, topped with a star-filled World Series that still endures. He doesn’t pretend history is straw hats and cigars, but gives you real people, real baseball and (the best part) real Boston, the way any real writer should. This is a book for all of us, a wonderful sports book.”

[Review mash-up courtesy Amazon, Kirkus, Booklist [starred review], Publisher's Weekly, Larry Tye, Mike Rutstein, Howard Bryant, Netgalley]

For more about Fenway 1912 or The Best American Sports Writing 2011, see www.glennstout.net All three books are now available for order through any online source in or in e-book editions and are shipping to bookstores now.

PHANTOM COLUMN: The Greatest Sox Team EVER

Postseason tickets printed and un-used are called phantoms. Here is my "phantom" Chin Music column from the now unpublished postseason issue of "Boston Baseball." And remember, if you still want to celebrate a championship, or celebrate Fenway Park see my new book, Fenway 1912. They win in this one.

At this time of year it is sometimes helpful to look back at the optimistic, crayola tinged predictions of the spring. Entering into this season more than one prognosticator deemed the 2011 Red the “the greatest ever” and predicted season win total of 100, 105 even (and, I kid you not, NESN.com) 120 wins. Oh, and that World Series thing? The tiniest of hurdles.

Those observers who have witnessed more than just the most recent decade know that, historically, things are generally not quite that easy. The title of “greatest Sox team ever” currently resides where it has for the last 99 years, with Fenway Park’s first residents, the boys of 1912. They went 105-47 in the regular season, plus a hard fought and memorable victory over the hated New York Giants in the eight game 1912 World Series that netted them another four wins (plus one tie) for a final victory total of 109.

This team, for all its accomplishments, is not that team, although there are some interesting parallels.

For one, both the 1912 and 2011 Red Sox featured a emerging star in centerfield who put together an MVP worthy season. Tris Speaker played centerfield for the 1912 Sox, hit .383 and led the team in almost everything, just as Jacoby Ellsbury is doing this year, although major difference is that Speaker ended up in Cooperstown and Ellsbury seems destined for Seattle when his contract ends. Then again, Speaker was dealt to Cleveland a few years after his MVP season.

Both clubs also featured a new first baseman, and here the candidates are Adrian Gonzalez for the 2011’s versus Jake Stahl for the ‘12s. And while Gonzalez has had a wonderful year, he was not quite Jake Stahl, who in addition to providing a bump offensively was also the 11’s Terry Francona and Tom Werner, serving both as manager and as a minority owner.

Now the metaphor starts to stretch, although both clubs employed a catching tandem consisting of one crippled veteran and one raw recruit, Varitek and Saltalamachia versus Rough Bill Carrigan and Hick Cady. Each also had an infielder with a surprisingly potent bat (Dustin Pedroia and Larry Gardner), and a left fielder who inspired nickname. Duffy Lewis of the 1912’s had a cliff nicknamed after him in the new Fenway. So too, has Carl Crawford inspired a name or too. Unfortunately, they are unprintable. In right, Hall of Famer Harry Hooper patrolled the field for ‘12’s – J.D. Drew was paid like a Hall of Famer to do the same for the ‘11’s, although here the metaphor begins to strain beyond belief.

It thoroughly falls apart on the mound. Smoky Joe Wood was 34-5 for ‘12’s. There is, to some surprise, his equivalent on the 11’s. In fact there are four, if you add up the positive qualities and victories of Beckett, Lester, Bard and Papelbon and ignore their failures. That’s how good Wood was in 1912. Take the Sox top four pitchers this year cumulatively, overlooks each bad game and you begin to approach Smoky Joe Wood.

Enough of similarities. The difference lies in, well, the difference. And that is in the unpredictable nature of reality versus prognostication. Greatness is potential realized and to be great you have to remain on the field. The ‘12’s, with the medical assistance of a bottle of iodine and (perhaps) a bucket of Epsom salts, stayed free of serious injuries for most of the season, losing only a few players for a few weeks (Ray Collins, Hick Cady and Jake Stahl) to injuries of the knees and ankles, while everyone else managed to play through things like charlie horses, abscessed teeth and hangovers with nary an antibiotic, PED or a cortisone shot in sight.

Not so with the 11’s, for which hangnails have taken on the specter of gloom once reserved for the grippe. The supposed “greatest Sox team ever” has been neither healthy nor particularly resilient or gallant, while the ‘12’s, for what I’ve learned about them, probably stitched wounds up with barbed wire. Just before the end of the season, for example, Larry Gardner dislocated a finger, the bone popping though the skin. A little over a week later, he was back on the field. That’s the kind of injury that would put J.D. Drew in intensive care for a month.

That is where the lesson lies and that’s what is so great about the postseason. It is the time of no excuses and where predictions vaporize before reality. To win, you actually have to play the games, and for this team, once known as “greatest Sox team ever” that means staying on the field. It is there, and not the disabled list, where the possibility of redemption and glory reside. While it may be too late for the ‘11s to be the greatest Sox team ever, a successful run in October could keep them from being the most disappointing.

Glenn stout is the author of Fenway 1912. For more see Glenn’s website, www.glennstout.net.

Fenway Park Ground Breaking 100 Years Ago

One hundred years ago today, September 25, with little ceremony or fanfare, construction on Fenway Park began. It had been common knowledge in Boston for quite some time that a new park would be built, and that it would be built in the Fens, on a parcel of property once known as part of the "Dana Lands," the ancestral holding s of one of New England's most prominent families, but construction was held up until the sale of the club from the Taylor family to a consortium headed by James McAleer was made official. When the papers were signed, the work began.

Six months later, Fenway Park opened for business.



I tell the entire story, and much much more, including a complete construction and architectural history of the park and, as one reviewer wrote:

"So many cool facts were included in this book that I've forgotten more than I've remembered and I'm probably going to have to re-read at least some of it again. Since I've no knowledge of baseball prior to the eighties it was fun to read about the 1912 season during which the Red Sox and the Giants fought for baseball dominance. This is a great book with more Red Sox/Fenway facts than you'll know what to do with."

For more, including a selection from the Prologue, see the Amazon listing (click"editorial reviews" for the Prologue)

http://www.amazon.com/Fenway-1912-Ballpark-Championship-Remarkable/dp/0547195621/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315652861&sr=1-1

or my website, www.glennstout.net.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN . . .

And they are terrific.

“In the capable hands of Stout, it promises to make all other books about Fenway’s construction and first season obsolete.” - Sports Illustrated.com

“Along with Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Boston’s Fenway Park represents the last physical connection to baseball’s early-twentieth-century history. . . Stout, editor of The Best American Sports Writing series reprises Fenway’s first year, culminating with the dramatic Sox’s victory over the New York Giants in an eight-game World Series, four games to three (the second game was declared a tie). Stout also examines the press coverage of the era. So many reporters would converge on the Series that the Sox greatly expanded the press box rather than give journalists valuable box seats. He also examines the prevalence of gambling, which would reach scandal proportions with the 1919 Black Sox, but in 1912, all the principals looked the other way. In addition, there are miniprofiles of players such as Smoky Joe Wood and Tris Speaker of the Sox as well as the larger-than-life owners and managers of the era. While some sports histories are bone-dry and distant, Stout imbues his account with a unique vibrancy and a razor-sharp intelligence. A wonderful sports book.” - Starred review, Booklist

“BEST BASEBALL BOOK EVER: If you are a lifelong Red Sox fan, a lifelong Red Sox hater, a rabid baseballholic or merely a casual baseball fan, Glenn Stout’s new book, Fenway 1912, is an amazing read into the birth of a ballpark, the 1912 Red Sox and the transition to the modern baseball era. His ability to weave together the tiniest detail and apparent minutiae into a rip-roaring page-turner that is hard to put down is simply amazing. If someone had told me that I’d be fascinated by the 1912 Red Sox I’d have laughed outright, but Mr. Stout is able to make the reader care about a baseball season that happened almost 100 years ago. Even if you are a confirmed Red Sox hater – if you love baseball you’ll find plenty to like in this book. If you know a Red Sox fan there probably isn’t a better book to give to them as gift. And if you haven’t had the privilege of visiting Fenway Park you’ll find yourself thinking about how to go to a few games in the Friendly Confines of Fenway to watch a baseball game in the oldest ballpark in the major leagues. I can whole-heartedly recommend this book. I’ll be buying several copies to give as gifts this holiday season." – Amazon reader review


“From tearing up the sod from a previous ballfield and moving it to the under-construction Fenway to details about the construction of the building to the intricacies of the daily life of the players, every detail of Fenway Park is covered in this book. Mr. Stout clearly has a passion for his material, and I am amazed at the research that must have gone into this. Anyone involved in this project is discussed: groundskeeper, architect, coaches, owners, players. Even at 416 pages, this wasn’t boring and kept me reading even though I don’t follow baseball. . . This has got to be THE definitive work on this subject. I can’t imagine even a dissertation that could be more complete.” - ADVANCE REVIEW via netgalley

“Fenway 1912 is not [just] light reading & pretty pictures. There’s going to be stuff in there that even Dick Bresciani doesn’t know. . . a book that everyone who covers this team has to buy, and read, and keep handy, so that when people ask us where the bones are buried, we can look wise and have the answer at our fingertips.“ -Boston Baseball

“To many fans, Fenway is the Mecca of baseball, a symbol of everything the game represents and aspires to be. But in 1912, it was just one of four new baseball stadiums utilizing newly developed concrete-and-steel construction methods—evidence, writes Best American Sports Writing series editor Stout (Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World, 2009, etc.) “of just how deeply the game of baseball had become ingrained into the fabric of American life.” The Sox’ 1912 season was a remarkable one, and the author takes the reader inside the locker room, management offices and the field. The team featured such luminaries as Hall-of-Famer Tris Speaker, pitching ace “Smoky” Joe Wood, player/manager Jake Stahl and a supporting cast of characters including Duffy Lewis, “Hick” Cady, “Heinie” Wagner, Buck O’Brien and the Sox’ famous booster club the Royal Rooters. But the book’s most important character is Fenway itself, and Stout spares no detail of its design, construction and effect on the game. The author’s meticulous approach makes the book a valuable addition to baseball history . . . The author does an excellent job of portraying the differences in the game between that era—when “the owners were the kings and the players lowly serfs”—and today. Throughout, Fenway Park, “a ballpark for the heart and soul,” shines as a beacon for America’s game. Baseball diehards and historians, and of course Red Sox fans, will find much of interest in this paean to one of sport’s most famous venues.” – KIRKUS Reviews


“In his new work, Stout (Red Sox Century) turns back the clock to 1912 to capture the first season the Boston Red Sox played on their now storied home field. The author gives a detailed account of how Fenway was constructed using “reinforced concrete,” an improvement from the wooden ballpark it replaced. Of course, a ballpark is nothing without a team, and Stout weaves the story of the new ballpark into the saga of the Red Sox ownership, players, fans, and the city of Boston. . . Stout’s knowledge of the sport and passion for the game certainly come across in his writing, especially when he is uncovering little known details of this bygone era of baseball. The book is full of fun and informative anecdotes about Fenway’s past and present including the connection between the ballpark and the sinking of Titanic, the origins of the term “Green Monster,” and how the new field with its cliff in left field, its short porch in right, and the bleachers in center affected Sox outfielders Duffy Lewis and Tris Speaker. Finished off with an epilogue that captures the major moments in Fenway history, this work is a well-constructed tribute to Fenway on its upcoming 100th anniversary. – Publisher’s Weekly

for more see www.glennstout.net or join Fenway 1912 on facebook

What You Don't Know About Fenway Park

As a non-fiction writer, there is nothing I enjoy more than taking on a subject that everyone thinks they know everything about, and uncovering new material. In regard to my new book about Fenway Park - arguably the best known sporting venue in the country, and one of the best known in the world - this is once again the case.

Three years ago I set out to write the definitive account of the creation, design, and building of Fenway Park and to allow the reader to experience Fenway Park in its first year, the Red Sox championship season of 1912. A few weeks from now, Fenway 1912 will be published.

In the book I make use of sources that no other purported history of either Fenway Park or the 1912 season or the 1912 World Series has ever utilized. I promise that this book will prove to be a revelation for even the most hard core fan of either the Red Sox or Fenway Park. I believe it makes all previous histories of the park completely obsolete. Some of the new information includes:

-Period architectural drawings of Fenway Park dating from 1912 that have NEVER been used elsewhere or been reproduced. To my knowledge these are the only period drawings known to exist and as far as I have been able to determine I may be about the only person to look at them - and realize what I was seeing, since 1912.

-A detailed construction history of the ballpark. This includes not only a complete and detailed schedule of the construction of the park, clearly outlining what was built when, but a full explication of the construction methods used in the construction of the park, what it was like for workers, and how the way Fenway Park was built impacted not only the 1912 season and but the ballpark you see today.

- A biography of Fenway architect James E. McLaughlin and builder Charles Logue. These two men had a lasting impact on Fenway Park but previous to my book have been little more than names on a page.

- A discussion of the architectural influences that are the reason Fenway Park looks the way it does today. Before this book, the architectural style and influences exhibited in Fenway Park have been mis-identified

- Detailed discussions on how the new ballpark affected the Red Sox and the 1912 World Series, and a dramatic and lively reconstruction of both the season and the Series, including the infamous contest between Joe Wood and Walter Johnson on September 4, 1912, perhaps the greatest pitching matchup in baseball history. Fenway Park impacted every inning of every game played there during 1912, and to fully understand both the 1912 season and the World Series - as well as every subsequent season in Fenway - one must experience that way Fenway Park revealed itself during the course of its inaugural season

- I explain not only why the "Green Monster" exists, but precisely why it was built the way that it was, and why and when the name "Green Monster" came into use. And guess what? Long before the "Green Monster" seats were built, people were watching baseball from atop the wall.

- How changes made to the ballpark over the course of the 1912 season determined the future evolution of Fenway.

- A detailed analysis of the 1912 season, including Joe Wood's remarkable 34-5 pitching campaign, and how two small changes - one to his pitching windup, and one small injury to another player - resulted in one of the greatest season-long pitching performances in baseball history.

- How pitching great Walter Johnson almost became a member of the 1912 Red Sox.

- The true story of the 1912 World Series, how a Red Sox team torn apart by dissension nevertheless prevailed, all due to an assist from Fenway Park.

I tell the story of Fenway Park as a readable, lively, living biography, full of characters and action, not as an academic history. Thirty years ago I moved to Boston because of Fenway Park, and it changed my life. I wrote this book for everyone whose life has been changed by Fenway.

If you read and appreciated Red Sox Century, or if you have ever sat in Fenway Park, this book is for you. I promise that you will never look at Fenway park the same way again.