enway Park is certainly unlike any other place where major league baseball is played.
It's the only park with a ladder in fair territory. It's the only park where a ball can be in play while it's rattling around the frame of a garage door. It's the only park where the shortstop has to run to left field in case a ball down the line bounces off the low fence that juts out from the third base box seats. It's the only park where a pop fly can be a home run, and a potential line drive home run can turn into a single. It's the only park where you can hit a 302-foot homer. It's the only park with the initials of a former owner and his wife in Morse code on the scoreboard. And it's the only park with no true upper deck.
The quirks have alternately entertained and tortured Red Sox fans for most of this century. Old-timers remember Duffy's Cliff, a grassy embankment in front of a smaller left field wall. The new wall (finished in 1934) has contributed thousands of memorable moments, none more painful than Bucky Dent's three-run homer that killed the Red Sox in the 1978 playoff game and would have been an out in any other stadium.
''I always loved Fenway Park,'' Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski said later. ''But that was the one moment when I hated the place. It was the one moment when the wall got back at us. I still can't believe it went in the net.''
American League officials in the past have indicated that new ballparks must have foul lines measuring at least 325 feet, but the Sox plan to stick with 302 down the right field line and 310 to left. Yesterday they said they were unaware of any restrictions governing field dimensions.
So there will still be a Green Monster in left and Pesky's Pole in right (lovable Johnny Pesky claims to have hit eight of his 17 career homers down the right field line at Fenway). And there will still be less foul territory than any ballpark. The Sox claim some box seats in the new park will actually be 5 feet closer to home plate.
They even said they might put a ladder on the new left field wall. The ladder has been a soure of amusement over the years. It enables the grounds crew to fetch balls hit into the screen, but it's tough on left fielders who don't know where to go when a fly ball ricochets toward center or toward foul territory. A Jim Lemon ladder shot confused Ted Williams and Jimmy Piersall and led to an inside-the-park-home run in the 1950s. In '63, Clydesdale slugger Dick Stuart turned the same trick with a ladder shot that bounced off the head of Cleveland outfielder Vic Davalillo.
Baltimore Orioles players and coaches used to laugh when their left fielder, Curt Motton, would get lost while a ball rattled around the doorway in the left-field corner. It's impossible to see what's happening in the corner from the visitor's dugout and Earl Weaver would say, ''We thought Curt got lost down there.''
Jim Palmer recalled, ''Don Buford had a ball go through his legs twice in left field. It skipped through once, then he turned around, and it came off the Wall back through his legs again.''
The Buford trick will be possible in the new Fenway. The new park is supposed to have similar dimensions and foul territory - but it's not likely to have garage doors or cliffs in the outfield.
The new park will be laid out with the same compass, which means the sun will set in the eyes of the right fielder and fans on the first base side will be hotter on sunny days. And there will still be right-field bullpens - always fun for fan interaction and spectacular, diving-over-the-wall catches.
Sadly, it's doubtful that there will be a 20-lane bowling alley under the new ballpark.
It was the estimable Roger Angell who in 1975 observed that in Cincinnati, 50,000 fans watched the World Series while in Boston, 35,000 participated in the Fall Classic.
Some of the quirks may not move across the street, but if the Sox do what they say they're going to do, Boston ball fans should still be active participants at Red Sox home games.
