Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark [Paperback]

Michael Borer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

Read the review at MLB.com

The Green Monster. Pesky's Pole. The Lone Red Seat. Yawkey Way. To baseball fans this list of bizarre phrases evokes only one place: Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Built in 1912, Fenway Park is Americas oldest major league ballpark still in use. In Faithful to Fenway, Michael Ian Borer takes us out to Fenway where we sit in cramped wooden seats (often with obstructed views of the playing field), where there is a hand-operated scoreboard and an average attendance of 20,000 fewer fans than most stadiums, and where every game has been sold out since May of 2003. There is no Hard Rock Café (like Toronto's Skydome), no swimming pool (like Arizona's Chase Field), and definitely no sushi (which has become a fan favorite from Baltimore to Seattle). As Borer tells us in this captivating book, Fenway is short on comfort but long on character.

Faithful to Fenway investigates the mystique of the ballpark. Borer, who lived in Boston before and after the Red Sox historic 2004 World Series win, draws on interviews with Red Sox players, including Jason Varitek and Carl Yastrzemski, management, including Larry Lucchino and John Henry, groundskeepers, vendors, and scores of fans to uncover what the park means for Boston and the people who revere it. Borer argues that Fenway is nothing less than a national icon, more than worthy of the banner outside the stadium that proclaims, “America's Most Beloved Ballpark”. Certainly as one of New England's greatest landmarks, Fenway captures the hearts and imaginations of a deferential and devoted public. There are T-shirts, bumper stickers, banners, and snow globes that honor the ballpark. Fenway shows up in popular films, novels, television commercials, and in replicated form in people's backyards—and coming in 2008 to Quincy, Massachusetts, is Mini-Fenway Park, a replica stadium built especially for kids.

Full of legendary stories, amusing anecdotes, and the shared triumph and tragedy of the Red Sox and their fans, Faithful to Fenway offers a fresh and insightful perspective, offering readers an unforgettable pilgrimage to the mecca of baseball.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this, his first book, Borer, an assistant professor of sociology and urban studies at Furman University, explores the sociological and urban cultural impact the Red Sox's fabled Fenway Park has had on Boston. After explaining that an "important place can become a part of culture's symbolic system and help foster collective memories," Borer demonstrates how Fenway, by providing "a place where the narrative could be passed from one generation to the next," became the specific site where the locals' individual histories developed into the region's collective history. Along with his astute social scientific insight, Borer also includes plenty of first-person accounts of the ballpark from Red Sox greats like Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Pesky and from regular Bostonians and out-of-town baseball fans. This ability to intermingle scholarly research with America's beloved pastime has allowed Borer to write an astute academic treatise that has the appeal of a consumer sports pub.
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From Booklist

Maybe it says something about the sterile, shopping-mall feel of so many new sports stadiums that Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park have become as valued as any star player in those cities and as much an attraction as the teams themselves. Borer, a sociologist and lifelong New Englander, explores the history of Fenway and its place in Boston’s culture through research and interviews with players, stadium personnel, fans, and team owners. Drawing from sociological jargon, he explains Fenway’s place in the culture as an example of “identity continuity.” Fenway is an emotional anchor for fans in the sense that it encompasses a part of an individual’s past and present. He also discusses the stadium in relation to nostalgia, its place as a civic monument, and its value as a marketing tool for the city. Then there is the question of Fenway’s future. After all, nothing lasts forever, and the Red Sox could probably draw another 20,000 fans per game if they had a large enough stadium. But the audience for this account comes to praise Fenway, not endanger it. --Wes Lukowsky

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814799779
• ISBN-13: 978-0814799772
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #522,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great.read for ANY nation, May 16, 2008

By 

Amazon Guy (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark (Paperback)

This is a great book.
As Mets and Yanks tear down their stadiums, Fenway remains. Does this make the Red Sox the only true team left? They resisted the temptation to build a megaplex like all of the other corporate teams and it has paid off. The Yankees have lost their stripes once again demonstrating that true baseball fans have their purest outlet with Fenway and the Sox.
This book is a smart take and worth reading by anyone who enjoys thinking about baseball. A nice addition to any library, but I would suggest for those who enjoy intelligent conversation about the game and what it means...

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A serious book, February 18, 2009

By 

E. Alpert "beva" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark (Paperback)

A great read. Full of history and facts about the ballpark woven with insight into meaning of Fenway and the place it holds in the hearts of those of us who make up Red Sox nation.

0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unfaithful to Fenway, October 15, 2008

By 

Galen K. Pletcher (Potsdam, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faithful to Fenway: Believing in Boston, Baseball, and America's Most Beloved Ballpark (Hardcover)

I wanted to give this title as a gift. It is shown with a very attractive dust cover. When it arrived, there was no dustcover. So I asked to have one sent with a dustcover. Another copy was sent immediately, at no charge, but also without the dustcover. I'm giving up. But I think it is very misleading to show the product with the dustcover and ship it without it.

- Galen Pletcher