pstairs, Bud Selig and John Harrington were pitching their latest thoughts on a new Fenway Park, claiming a new Fenway would be a ''classic new ballpark.''
Downstairs, on the field, those National Leaguers making their first visit were selling nothing but words from the heart. To players like Tony Gwynn, Larry Walker, Jay Bell, and Billy Wagner, Fenway Park is simply a classic.
''It's an honor to play here with all the legends who've played in this park,'' said Rockies slugger Walker. ''It's going to be an evening never to forget ... everything from taking a swing at the Monster to actually seeing how short the dugout [roof] really is, whether I'll bang my head if I jump up or how tiny the [visitors'] clubhouse really is. I've heard a lot of things about that clubhouse.''
Harrington was surrounded by vivid sketches, a colorful model drawn to scale, artistic renderings - as he said ''Camden Yards was the inspiration of all the classic new ballparks.''
Gwynn virtually jumped off the bus that had brought him and his NL teammates to the ballpark ''so I could go out and see Fenway for myself.''
All day long, Gwynn had searched for that first view, opening the drapes in his room at the Westin Hotel early in the morning ''and I was looking around to see if I could see Fenway. You know that sign that's over the left-field wall? I was looking for that sign. But I couldn't find Fenway.''
The Cubs' Sammy Sosa talked about when he was signed by the Red Sox in 1994 but was nullified because of the strike.
''Great, it's great here, Fenway, but I'd never change this ballpark for Wrigley Field,'' said Sosa, the response virtually jumping from his lips and heart. ''Wrigley Field is the best to me. But Fenway, it is a great ballpark, too. Both are tradition ballparks ... ballparks that bring a lot of memories back from the past.''
''Classic new'' ballparks perhaps may never inspire the response given by Matt Williams of the Diamondbacks, even though Williams visited Fenway during his one season with the Indians in 1997.
''First thing, I'm going to try and pepper some balls off that wall out there and have some fun,'' said Williams. ''But most of all, you just walk out onto the field here at Fenway and you see so much tradition. You're thinking, `A lot of great players played on that same field you're on now.' The uniqueness of this place is the big draw.''
In other cities, in other ballparks, baseball calls on mascots, fireworks, and diversions to attract fans. But Boston is Boston and baseball is enough.
The Diamondbacks' Randy Johnson, formerly of the Mariners, spoke of one reaction he always had when pitching at Fenway. ''Any time a ball went over my head, I always thought the ball was going off The Wall.
''I love the history of the game. If you'd come down to the basement of my house you'd see how much baseball history I have there. Did you know Kid Nichols won 30 games seven years in a row - and going into a certain park, I realize the players who've played in those parks. I remember coming into Fenway the first time and just thinking of all the great players who've played on this field.''
''This is where I came to my very first [major league] ball game,'' recalled the Astros' Wagner, ''I had a day off in the Cape Cod League and came up and watched the Red Sox. You couldn't help but fall in love with this place.''
Wagner remembers ''walking up the runway ... seeing the lights ... the Green Monster popping up right in front of you. I remember saying, `This is the big leagues. This is what it's all about. I always said since that day when I first came here that Fenway was my favorite ballpark.''
