Happy Birthday Fenway, 100 years, pretty amazing when you think about it, and judging by some of the pictures through the years that I've just browsed, it appears you've got a Benjamin Button thing going on, actually looking better and younger with age.
I don't have much to add, I'm not a historian, and I certainly can't wax poetic, so I'll just say this, Thanks for my first game, thanks for every game since, and thanks for those to come (except for those where I'm sitting in section 3 and am uncomfortable the whole time). I will, however give you my favorite game at Fenway
It was the 2003 ALDS, Game 3, Sox vs. Oakland. My friends and I had camped out all night for tickets, the Sox were down 0-2 in a best of 5, we didn't care. This was pre-2004 remember, this wasn't anything new, no one was reacting hysterically, it was all business as usual. Everyone had hope, we always had hope back then, but we knew the reality. I distinctly remember a cabby driving by in the middle of the night while we were all lined up, stopping, rolling down the window, and in a gruff Boston accent yelling "WE GOT 'EM RIGHT WHERE WE WANT EM BOYS!" That line is burned into my memory. The entire line of people camping out, mostly intoxicated, lit up with cheers. It was awesome, and so was game 3. An 11 inning thriller, culminating in this Trot Nixon Walk Off Home Run:
It sucks that the stands are blurred because my friends and I are right there in centerfield, up against the wall in the top-left, going absolutely ape shit. To this day it is the most fun I've ever had at a sporting event. Trot's home run was straight at us, Straight At Us. When I retell the story I usually say it landed a row or two in front of us, in reality it was probably 7-10 rows. That didn't stop one of my friends from leaning forward like he was going to catch it, and then falling 3 rows forward. Not that any of us try to save him, or the people he fell on even cared. Everyone was going bananas. It was incredible, and I'll always use the Fenway Park crowd that night as my barometer for how a playoff baseball game is supposed to feel. It was electric, it was alive, it was Fenway, and I hope it always will be.
