The message boards here read, ``Welcome to Fenway Park....America's Most Beloved Ballpark."
When ranking our favorite ballparks, we tend to leave out Fenway and Wrigley Field because they are in a separate category - not close to being modern but charming and historic.. I like the seating area, hate everything else about it.
One of my favorite aspects of my job is arriving at a ballpark in the early afternoon, before the fans, pre-game hype, loud music, giveaways, trivia contests, kiss cams, dance-offs and everything else that's stuffed inside nine innings of play.
The stadium is quiet in the early afternoon - a different kind of quiet at places like Fenway.
``The ghosts," former Twins backup catcher Tom Prince told me once. ``They speak to you here."
Everything behind the playing field here, unfortunately, is crappy. The visitor's clubhouse? We crawl all over each other. I got upgraded to first class for my flight here last night, and there was more room there than the visitors clubhouse at Fenway. (O.K., a slight exaggeration)
My goal this year was to walk down the tunnel from the clubhouse to the playing field. They finally resurfaced it during the offseason, You used to walk across long planks to get to the field. Besides the strange substances that seemed to lie beneath the planks, there was always something that looked like Babe Ruth's underwear in the middle of the muck.
They did a great job with the resurfacing. I can't believe it.
