When I say "church of baseball," this is what I mean: the renewal of spirit and soul that takes place for me on the walk up to Fenway Park. I mean crossing the bridge over the Mass Pike, welcoming the cool evening air, and descending past the Cask'n'Flagon onto Lansdowne Street, smells of smoke and hot dogs and alcohol and giant soft pretzels all around. I mean stopping, unashamed, to take pictures of the FENWAY PARK - LANSDOWNE GATE C sign with the Prudential Building as a backdrop, leaning through the doors of the Bleacher Bar to get a look out onto the field, little kids in Beckett and Lester jerseys leaning over the dividers in line to show each other how they're gonna catch foul balls from their seats tonight.
I mean stopping to lean against a railing on the non-park side of Lansdowne, just where you can see the video screen inside, to hear the announcement of the starting lineup, the rumbling applause that escapes up into the sky when David Ortiz (the designated hitter, nummmber 34) is announced, the wild cheers and whistles for Josh Beckett at the end of a difficult, exhausting season. I mean walking down the street completely at peace, every gap and imperfection in the world filled in by the sounds of guys calling "eyyy, tickets? tickets?" and "programs two dollahs, free Green Monstah stickah with ya program."
It took me a few months after I moved here to realize where exactly I'd been on my college visits to Boston the previous summer. Eventually I connected the dots between the three schools I'd seen - Northeastern, Emerson, and BU - and realized that the part of the city I'd fallen in love with was, in fact, just off my campus: Kenmore Square, viewed from a certain angle in the center of the street. I'd remembered walking from a garage downtown to Fenway through a stretch of gorgeous, old-Boston brownstones into a place where the streets split off and a five-story Barnes and Noble claimed nearly an entire block under a 40-foot-high Citgo sign. I lived in Boston for months before I realized that was lower Commonwealth Avenue and the heart of Kenmore Square - the ballpark neighborhood.
It's a similar feeling walking across the Clemente Bridge at home, don't get me wrong. I could happily spend hours walking the river path below PNC Park, or hanging out on the bridge, or standing on the balcony up above the Allegheny on the third base side. But for enthusiasm of the crowd - not to mention magnitude of the crowd - PNC and Fenway are, no pun intended, in different leagues. I would love Boston without the ballpark, but I've never known it that way, and neither has anyone else of my generation, or my parents', or my grandparents'. The ballpark is the city, same as the rumble of the train at street level or the neon beacon of the Citgo sign reflected on the river at midnight. And even when Beckett can't keep his fastball down and playoff hopes have essentially become delusions, the ballpark and the game are there to strengthen the soul.
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