A few weeks ago, as I was walking out of my local library, I noticed a stand full of brochures for local events and classes. One catalog in particular for the Florida Gulf Coast University - the Renaissance Academy - interested me because they offered classes in everything from Claude Monet to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights to.....If You Build It, They Will Come: The Ballpark Evolution from Elysian Fields to JetBlue Park. This class included a tour of our brand new Boston Red Sox spring training facility, and so I signed myself up.
The 2 hour lecture was presented by baseball fanatic Dr. Melissa Butler who told of the first baseball field Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ which was built in 1846, the first professional baseball club in Cincinnati, and the first professional baseball game between Ft. Wayne and Cleveland. (Ft. Wayne won 2-0.) I also learned an interesting fact about the Houston Astrodome - that it originally had grass which grew because sunlight passed through the clear lucite dome panels. However, the players couldn't see fly balls, so the Lucite panels were painted over, and the grass, not getting sunlight, died, and hence the invention of Astroturf!
After the lecture I headed out to JetBlue Park for a private tour given by Vin (from Boston).
JetBlue Park at Fenway South, commonly called JetBlue Park, will open on the 100th anniversary of Boston's Fenway Park and will be the new home of the Boston Red Sox, replacing City of Palms Park in downtown Ft. Myers. This $77.9 million facility features identical field dimensions as Boston's Fenway, the original manual scoreboard, which has been in storage since 2002 in South Dakota, and an identical Green Monster wall. JetBlue also has the lone "red seat" in right field signifying the longest home run ever hit at Fenway by the great Ted Williams at 502 feet. Also, for those who didn't know, Fenway got its name from its location: in the Back Bay Fens of Boston.
Boston great Ted Williams is honored by a statue at the stadium's main entrance.
