And I don’t mean the city’s. No, 125 years ago today, the Boston Americans, later to be renamed the Boston Red Sox, played their first home game. Not at Fenway Park, mind you, but their original home—the Huntington Avenue Grounds.
I decided to make a graphic comparing Huntington Avenue to Fenway, but could not find anything close to an official diagram of the original stadium. So I had to create my own, but given the lack of diagrams, if this is not 100% accurate, do not hold it against me. But it does at least show how much larger the original grounds were.
The Sox were then known as the Boston Americans. On the afternoon of 8 May 1901 they hosted the Philadelphia Athletics—later of Kansas City and Oakland fame and presently Sacramento infamy—and played a full nine innings. The Americans won 12–4. (Something they are not doing a lot of thus far 125 years later.)
If I could buy a ticket and a beer and open my scorebook, I would recognise the broad strokes and rules of the sport, but how it is played is mighty different. Take a look at the box score.
When was the last time you saw a losing pitcher throw a complete game, giving up 22 hits and 12 runs?
On the other hand, if I could buy a ticket and a beer to watch Cy Young pitch? Wouldn’t that be something. And credit to the Athletics, they had Nap Lajoie in their lineup, one of the best second basemen of all time.
So Happy Friday, all.
I’m sure tonight I’ll be cracking open a cold one and watching the Americans/Sox play the Tampa Bay Rays a little more than half a mile away from their old stomping grounds at Huntington Avenue.
Credit for the piece is mine.