Ultimate Baseball Road Trip

Read Ultimate Baseball Road Trip for Free Online Page A

Book: Read Ultimate Baseball Road Trip for Free Online
Authors: Josh Pahigian, Kevin O’Connell
speedysecond-sacker in the early 1980s, as well as for anyone who has enjoyed Remy’s commentating during the past two decades. Despite his busy NESN schedule and the obligations he bears as President of Red Sox Nation, the Rem-Dog makes time to hobnob with patrons. His signature “Remy Burger” is served on fried dough. We’re still awaiting word from the American Heart Association on whether the concoction gets its stamp of approval. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.
EL TIANTE’S CUBAN STA ND
    Yawkey Way
    Remy isn’t the only favorite son who’s parlayed his popularity into a cottage industry. The jovial Luis Tiant may be the best pitcher not in Cooperstown (no offense intended, Jack Morris). He also makes a mean Cuban sandwich and is happy to pose for pictures and recall his exploits on the Fenway mound. Of all the famous former Sox who return to Fenway to watch games, no one garners a larger ovation than “El Tiante” when he tips his hat to the crowd from the team’s legends’ box on the first base side of the plate.
    Kevin:
I thought Bob Stanley gets a lot of cheers too.
    Josh:
That’s because he’s remembered fondly for popping beach balls in the bullpen.
SAUSAGE VENDORS
    No trip to Fenway would be complete without paying a visit to the sausage stands on Lansdowne Street or at the corner of Van Ness and Yawkey Way. You won’t find a sandwich this fresh, juicy, and utterly mouth-watering inside the park. Get a sweet sausage “loaded” with sautéed peppers and onions or, if you prefer, order it “naked.” Just get one. Among the vendors that rate high on our pork-o-meters are The Sausage Guy —whose logo features a half-naked woman straddling a space ship— The Sausage King , and Che-Chi’s , which has the best secret sauce this side of Milwaukee.
    Even if you’re visiting Boston on a non-game day, you can usually find The Sausage Guy stand behind the Monster on Thursday through Saturday, between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m., catering to the local bar crowd.
Inside the Park
    Have you ever seen such wacky field dimensions? Three hundred and two feet down the right-field line. Three hundred and eighty to straightaway right. Four hundred and twenty to right-center. Three hundred and ninety to dead center. Three hundred and seventy-nine to deep left. And just 310 down the left-field line. For years the park was considered a haven for right-handed pull hitters and a graveyard for southpaw hurlers, but through the years lefty swingers have actually enjoyed considerably more success at Fenway than their right-handed counterparts. Think of David Ortiz, Mo Vaughn, Mike Greenwell, Wade Boggs, Fred Lynn, Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams, and Babe Ruth as lefties who make the case for this counter-intuitive ballpark effect. According to our theory, this is because the spacious right field leaves plenty of room for safeties to drop and the Wall rewards lefties who can go the other way with even mediocre power. As for those pull-hitting righties who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the Wall’s munificence? There’s a saying in Boston: “The wall giveth and the wall taketh away.” What does this mean? For every routine fly that settles into the Monster Seats there’s at least one rising liner that would have been a homer in any other park but clangs off the Wall for a single. Just ask former Sox like Jack Clark or Mike Lowell, who will be happy to tell you all about it.
Ballpark Features
THE MONSTER
    Fenway’s signature Wall is an ever-evolving edifice. In fact, when Fenway first opened in 1912 it wasn’t even part of the design. Rather, a steep hill rose at the back of the left-field lawn and atop the hill stood a twenty-five-foot-high fence separating the hillcrest from the street outside. With the advent of the lively ball, the Red Sox leveled the hill in 1934 and constructed a two-hundred-foot-long, thirty-seven-foot-high fence, using more than fifteen tons of materials. The manual

Similar Books

Claire Delacroix

Once Upon A Kiss

Con Law

Mark Gimenez

Nightwatcher

Wendy Corsi Staub

Something Invisible

Siobhan Parkinson

We Ended Up Together

Veronica Makers

Diablo

Patricia; Potter

Eden Hill

Bill Higgs