Trying to recall my first trip to Fenway Park

As I sit in my office with the 101st Fenway Park Opening Day on my television, I get a little nostalgic thinking back to my first ever visit to Boston to see the Red Sox.

My memory is usually strong, but I'm going to have to take a guess that it was roughly around the spring time of 1977. Our minor league baseball team was embarking on the annual Fenway Park trip into Boston to see the Red Sox.  It was something that was on the schedule every year for all of the minor leaguers to go along with their coaches and parents.

For me, this was the best.  I loved playing baseball and the opportunity to see the Red Sox in person was just the greatest moment.


I remember sitting in the yellow school bus that our team was assigned and watching the bus driver navigate his way down Route 1 in Saugus and over the Tobin Bridge to connect to Storrow Drive.  I didn't know the names of the roads until later, but I'm pretty sure that's the way he went.

We all had our gloves and were wearing our team t-shirts and hats. No, there were no luxury boxes for me and my teammates, rather we had a nice little section of the center field bleachers all to ourselves to enjoy the game.

There were several things that happened on that trip that I still remember well, but perhaps the most memorable was the exact moment my eyes saw the Fenway Park field from inside the stadium.  As I walked up the ramp from the gate to our seats, I was able to catch a little glimpse of the park through the fans filing in just ahead of us.  But once I reached the top, I just stopped. For right before me was perhaps the greenest, most beautiful baseball field I had ever seen.

Television broadcasts of games were far from the HD quality that exists today and back then, television just could not replicate just how magnificent the outfield grass in front me was.  It was kind of like the first time I walked into the old Boston Garden in 1984.  The Garden, like Fenway, was very small, but it was just breathtaking how beautiful, and in this case, how yellow everything was.

The acoustics of the one and only all-time greatest public address announcer Sherm Feller echoed ever so softly and beautifully around the ballpark in a sort of mesmerizing way that made you focus on every word he was saying.

Folks in the press box 400 feet away probably could pick out our six or eight minor league teams sitting color-coded in the bleachers.  But for most of us, we were more interested in the pro shop and buying plastic batting helmets, miniature wood bats, and of course, the batting glove.  My brother and I couldn't wait to get home and play like the Red Sox with our bat and our gloves.

Memories that have certainly lasted, just as I am sure some young little boy and his family are soaking in the beauty and spectacle that is Opening Day at Fenway Park.