Fenway 1912 (21 page)

ILLUS
. 3 Cutaway architectural rendering showing the grandstand in relation to team offices, the field, and the street. Note that the field sits below street level, making the grandstand appear taller from inside the park than from the outside.

Collection of the author

ILLUS
. 4 Architectural rendering showing details of concrete reinforced beams and columns supporting grandstand seating deck (1912). Note that the floor of the box seats is nearly four feet above field grade. For the World's Series, additional box seats were built and extended to field level. The four-foot gap between the floor of the box seats and grade is the area where fans, on at least one occasion, watched the game.

Collection of the author

ILLUS
. 5 Fenway Park third-base dugout (1912). The original dugouts were only forty feet long. Virtually cut in half by a concrete column, they featured a slat-style bench similar to those once used in railroad stations. Note the square openings on the dugout wall, which apparently provided ventilation from beneath the stands.

Collection of the author

ILLUS
. 6 Concrete reinforced columns and beams form a network of support beneath the grandstand deck. This style of construction was state of the art in 1912. Many fans today still reach their seats by walking up the ramp featured here.
Collection of the author

ILLUS
. 7 Contractor Charles Logue (1912). Charles Logue, a native of Ireland and father of sixteen, supervised the construction of Fenway Park. Logue is standing at the end of the grandstand, third-base side. Note the poor condition of the field after an extremely wet spring.

Courtesy of the Logue Family

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. 8 Fenway Park exterior (1914). Architect James McLaughlin's inspiration for the Fenway Park facade and team offices was rooted in Gustav Stickley's "Arts and Crafts" movement. Even two years after Fenway Park opened, the lot on Jersey Street opposite the ballpark remained undeveloped and horses and buggies were still familiar sights on Boston streets.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress

Prints and Photographs Division

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. 9 "Seating Plan of Fenway Park as Rearranged for World's Series Games" (1912). In an effort to maximize profit during the World's Series, during a road trip in September the Red Sox added 11,600 seats to Fenway Park, significantly diminishing the size of the field of play, enclosing the field for the first time, and giving Fenway Park the same basic footprint still recognizable today. Actual construction varied slightly from these plans.
Collection of the author

ILLUS
. 10 Construction of the right-field bleachers (1912). Workers rushed to build the new all-wood bleachers section before the World's Series in the space between the pavilion in the foreground and the center-field bleachers. Unlike the pavilion or main grandstand, no steel or concrete columns were used to support the bleacher structure. Note the network of wooden scaffolding that supports the center-field bleachers.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

ILLUS
. 11 In combination, these three photos, taken from right field, show the pavilion, the grandstand, the third-base stands and Duffy's Cliff bleachers, and the leftfield wall. Together they provide the best photographic documentation of the interior of Fenway Park in preparation for the 1912 World's Series. Note how the new construction has diminished the size of the field of play and completely enclosed the playing field with stands. The press box has not yet been expanded, but the curious fence in right field, eighteen inches high and topped by a rail, is in place. Balls that bounced over or through the fence were home runs.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

ILLUS
. 12 Fenway Park press box and grandstand roof (1914). Although this photograph dates from 1914, when the Boston Braves played and won the World's Series in Fenway Park, Fenway looked much the same for the 1912 World's Series. The original press box was removed in September 1912 and replaced by the much larger press box seen here.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

There is a feeling among base ball men that I have talked with that this is not going to be a big year. There doesn't seem to be the enthusiasm that there ought to be ... But still, there is no knowing what a season will bring forth. Maybe with some warm weather, the base ball fever will return. In late years the seasons in Boston have been later. Time was when May was a warm month here. It isn't any more. As yet we haven't had a really warm day and there is none in sight.

—A. H. C. Mitchell,
Sporting Life

O
NE MONTH INTO
the season the reviews were all in. Despite the glowing reaction from the press on opening day, by the time the Sox returned to Boston Fenway Park was starting to lose some shine. After seeing Washington's brand-new park, which had opened in 1911 but had had a second deck added for the 1912 season, Boston's new park seemed a little lacking, somehow unfinished, both too small in capacity and too spacious in the field. A. H. C. Mitchell observed: