BOSTON – The first time I walked into the visitor's clubhouse in Fenway Park more than a decade ago, all the lights were out.
As I stood just inside the doorway, wondering whether I was in the right place, I realized that the tiny, dark room was actually packed with ballplayers — almost all of whom were crowded on couches and chairs around an average-size TV, watching a bootleg DVD copy of the movie "Knocked Up," which was still in theaters at the time.
Not exactly ideal working conditions.
But it might have been one of the few times that Twins players had no complaints about the low-ceilinged, pole-cluttered, claustrophobic quarters that visiting teams are assigned when they visit baseball's oldest ballpark, as the Twins will do this week. As clubhouses go, Fenway's makes a fine screening room.
"It's too small. You feel crowded," said Jose Berrios, who, in an unrelated matter, has lost both of his Fenway starts during his career but will get another chance Tuesday. "The [clubhouse employees] there are good people, it's not their fault. It's old."
It is, and there is no denying the history here. The team's quarters, roughly one-third the size of the Twins' home clubhouse in Fenway Park, connect to the dugout through a narrow, dimly lit tunnel, and it's almost impossible not to imagine Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio or Harmon Killebrew ducking down that same dingy hallway.
"I like it. It's like baseball was a long time ago," Tyler Duffey said. "I'm just glad we only go there once a year."
That's because as new ballparks were built, the lavishness of the sport's dressing rooms — small compounds in most modern stadiums, actually, with dining rooms, large medical suites, workout rooms and batting cages — has mirrored the growth in revenue of a $10 billion industry.
