Fenway Park's Green Monster: How the Majors' Oldest Ballpark Changed Hitting
A 37-foot wall, a hand-operated scoreboard and a lone red seat: a tour of Fenway Park, opened in 1912, and how a ballpark's shape changes the game.
Boston's Fenway Park opened in April 1912 and is the oldest ballpark in the major leagues. For more than a century it has kept features most modern parks have lost, and the most famous of them is the tall green wall in left field that fans call the Green Monster.
A 37-foot wall
The Green Monster stands about 37 feet (11.3 m) high, the tallest outfield wall in the majors, and it sits unusually close to home plate, with left field marked at around 310 feet. The wall was not always green: it was covered in advertisements until 1947, when it was painted over, and the nickname followed.
How the wall changes the game
In other parks, a high, deep fly ball might clear the fence. At Fenway the same ball often bangs off the Monster and turns into a double. On the other hand, a line drive that would be caught in a bigger park can carry over the wall for a home run.
That makes Fenway a dream for right-handed pull hitters and turns left field into a craft of its own. Red Sox left fielders have to learn every angle the ball can take off the wall if they want to hold hitters to a single.
A scoreboard turned by hand
Set into the Monster is a manual scoreboard that is still updated by staff working from inside the wall, changing scores and numbers by hand. In an age of video boards it is one of the few such traditions left, and a must-see for visitors.
In 2003 the Red Sox added the Monster Seats on top of the wall, now some of the most sought-after tickets in the ballpark.
Stories in the stands
A single red seat in the right-field bleachers marks where a Ted Williams home run landed in 1946, considered the longest ever hit at Fenway. The right-field foul pole is known as Pesky's Pole, after Red Sox great Johnny Pesky.
In 2004 the Red Sox ended an 86-year championship drought, and Fenway was at the centre of that story.
How Fenway has changed, and how it has not
Fenway has been renovated many times, but always around what was already there. Seats were added on the roof and along the right-field line, the concourses were widened and new video boards were installed, yet the shape of the field and the Green Monster have stayed. The Red Sox have chosen to keep the oddities that make the park special rather than smooth them out.
Those oddities run all through the field. Fenway is not symmetrical: centre field has a deep corner known as the Triangle, right field curves away from the foul pole, and the bullpens sit in front of the right-field bleachers. Outfielders who come to Boston for the first time often need weeks to learn where the ball will go.
For visiting teams, the park is part of the challenge. A left fielder who plays the Monster badly can turn singles into doubles, and a pitcher who is used to bigger parks may find that a routine fly ball suddenly matters. Home teams that know their own park well turn that knowledge into wins.
The lesson for Baseball Dream managers
Fenway shows that a ballpark's shape changes the game. The distance and height of the fences decide which hitters thrive and where fielders need to stand.
In Baseball Dream, park factors also shift how many extra-base hits and singles fall. When you set a lineup, think about which hitters suit your home park and how to adjust on the road. Taking the ballpark into account is often the margin between winning and losing.