Fenway Park - Features

Features

The park's location in the Kenmore Square area includes many buildings of similar height and architecture and thus it blends in with its surroundings. When pitcher Roger Clemens arrived in Boston for the first time in 1984, he took a taxi from Logan Airport and was sure the driver had misunderstood his directions when he announced their arrival at the park. Clemens recalled telling the driver "No, Fenway Park, it's a baseball stadium ... this is a warehouse." Only when the driver told Clemens to look up and he saw the light towers did he realize he was in the right place.

Fenway Park is one of the two remaining classic parks still in use in major league baseball (the other being Wrigley Field), and both have a significant number of obstructed view seats, due to pillars supporting the upper deck. These are sold as such, and are a reminder of the architectural limitations of older ballparks.

George Will asserts in his book Men at Work that Fenway Park is a "hitters' ballpark", with its short right-field fence (302 feet), narrow foul ground, and generally closer-than-normal outfield fences. By Rule 1.04, Note(a), all parks built after 1958 have been required to have foul lines at least 325 feet (99 m) long and a center-field fence at least 400 feet (120 m) from home plate. Regarding the narrow foul territory, Will writes:

The narrow foul territory in Fenway Park probably adds 5 to 7 points onto batting averages. Since World War II, the Red Sox have had 18 batting champions (through 1989)... Five to 7 points are a lot, given that there may be only a 15- or 20-point spread between a good hitting team and a poor hitting team.

Will states that some observers might feel that these unique aspects of Fenway give the Red Sox an advantage over their opponents, given that the Red Sox hitters play 81 games at the home stadium while each opponent plays no more than nine games as visiting teams but Will does not share this view.

Fenway Park has one of the smallest seating capacity in the major leagues. Some now-closed ballparks had seating capacities under 40,000, and some had a smaller capcity than Fenway. Montreal's Jarry Park was smallest of all the modern ballparks, with a seating capacity of about 28,000. At the time of Jarry Park's closing in 1977, Fenway's capacity was listed (according to Sporting News Baseball Guides) at 33,513, making it the smallest in the majors at that point. Fenway began to grow incrementally over the next three decades, as pockets of seating areas were added from time to time.

Before the 2008 season, Fenway Park's capacity was increased to 37,373, where it remains following additional renovations for the 2009 season, making its total capacity the fourth smallest, ahead of Marlins Park, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, and Tropicana Field. Renovations prior to the 2009 season permitted the Red Sox to sell about 350 more tickets each game, and the official capacity was increased to 37,400.