Tagged: Baseball

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE BALL GAME")

SISTER WYNONA CARR: (Singing) Life is a ball game, being played each day...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE BALL GAME")

MARTIN: And if it's true that life's a ball game, NPR's Mike Pesca is WEEKEND EDITION's umpire, calling the pitches and the plays as he sees them. He joins us now to talk more about sports and life and - hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hey. How are you doing, Rachel?

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Let me hang up the phone now. Time for sports.

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SIMON: Baseball's fast starts - some teams founder early and the anniversary of the Big Green Monster. Errrrr. Howard Bryant joins us, senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine; joins us from New England Public Radio in Amherst, Massachusetts. Howard, thanks for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT: Hey, Scott. How are you?

SIMON: Fine, thanks.

BRYANT: So, who's off to a good start and who hasn't had a good time at all?

The home of the Red Sox may be a Boston landmark but it also holds a place in baseball history. The big green wall in left field is known as the Green Monster. Some fans are paying more than $1,000 to sit on top of the Green Monster when the Red Sox play Friday night.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about Fenway Park. A century after it was built, fans still gush about this "lyric little bandbox," as John Updike called it. To guys like Ed Carpenter, Fenway is history and home, magic and mystique.

"I love this place," he says, tearing up. "I mean, it's not mortar and bricks and seats."

Carpenter first started coming to Fenway with his dad in 1949, when he was 6.

"We walked up this ramp right behind this home plate," he recalls. "I can still see everything was green, emerald green. It was love at first sight."

The nation's oldest ball park is turning 100. Boston's Fenway Park has been home to the Red Sox through some of baseball's greatest highs and most heartbreaking lows. The park also narrowly escaped the fate of similar old stadiums that were torn down.