Fenway 1912 (6 page)

The only other item of interest concerned the manager of the team. It was widely believed that Donovan was done and that McAleer—or perhaps just McRoy and Johnson—would name a new manager. It was not long before the name on everyone's lips was Jake Stahl. His return would solve two issues. Upon his retirement he had still been one of the best first basemen in the league, and the current Sox first baseman, Clyde Engle, was the lightest-hitting man on the team. Even though there had been no public announcement concerning Stahl's investment in the club, it did not take long for the rumor mill to get going, and McAleer acknowledged that Stahl "is the man I want and I intend to see him after the World's Series is over." McAleer even admitted that "I have sunk line, sinker and hook into the Red Sox club and if my investment is not a success I am stone broke." Having Stahl on board would be some insurance against that, but when asked, the banker remained coy about returning. Owning a piece of the team was not payment enough for Stahl. He still wanted a contract that recognized his on-field talents and had no intention of going to Boston to lose either baseball games or money.

Meanwhile the Red Sox, as if relieved to be freed from the Taylor regime, suddenly and somewhat inexplicably began playing their best baseball of the year. In a doubleheader on September 16 against Cleveland, Wood and O'Brien both tossed shutouts, sparking a run that saw the Red Sox win thirteen of their final nineteen games, including their final six, the longest streak of the season. The streak lifted the club from below .500 and sixth place to a final record of 78-75, fourth place, as over the final three days of the season the team managed to vault past both New York and Chicago.

While some of their success had to do with the opposition—they avoided the first-place A's and everyone else was merely playing out the string—some was due to the pitching of O'Brien and the sudden emergence of Joe Wood. He seemed to be inspired not only by O'Brien's performance but also by the release of Karger, Carrigan's injury, and some rest. Before shutting out Cleveland, he had gone nearly two weeks since his last appearance on the mound, and he then went another nine days before pitching again, beating St. Louis 9–2 and striking out eleven. A week later, against the Yankees, he was even better. Despite the fact that the game was called after eight innings because of darkness, he shut out the New Yorkers and struck out thirteen, the highest total in the league that season and a performance he punctuated by striking out both the first three hitters he faced and the final three. No one noticed, but over the last three weeks of the season the Red Sox were the best team in baseball.

That was not all that went unnoticed. On September 25, over on Jersey Street, work began on the new ballpark. The club didn't bother with holding a grand ceremony marked by speeches or politicians or ribbon-cutting or golden shovels. With opening day barely five months off, that would have been a luxury, since there was work—a lot of it—to be done. Workers from Charlie Logue's construction company got busy clearing the site, grading the property, erecting a construction house, and moving equipment and materials on-site as surveyors began laying out the foundation and other structures, driving stakes into the ground, and marking them with bright strips of ribbon.

On September 29 papers were passed that transferred the property from the Taylors to the Fenway Realty Trust, whose trustees included both General Taylor and John I., as well as Ashton Carr, the vice president and treasurer of the State Street Bank, and Arthur Wise, an attorney whose firm bought the bonds that were issued to finance the building of the park and would soon make them available for purchase. The trust was capitalized to $300,000, divided into 3,000 shares worth $100 each. The mortgage securing $275,000 in nontaxable bonds was recorded on the deed, presumably to provide construction funds in advance of the bond sale.

While the baseball world turned its attention to the pending World's Series between the Giants and the Athletics, on the last day of the season, October 7, the Red Sox played in the Huntington Avenue Grounds for the last time.

Had it been just another game, it never would have been played, for it rained hard the night before and the field was a quagmire. But John I. Taylor had declared it "Kids' Day," promising free admission for children, and several hundred young ruffians took advantage of the offer. They were nearly alone. Most fans held little sentiment toward the old park and chose, in the cold damp weather, to stay away. Only 850 brave souls saw the old park off, and most of those were more interested in clambering beneath the grandstand than watching the game.

Jerome Kelley and his crew did what they could to make the field playable, brooming away puddles and spreading sawdust everywhere. Scattered throughout the stands were a few notable figures who had seen the first game played at the old ballyard, including General Arthur "Hi Hi" Dixwell, who had turned over the first spade of earth when the park was built and whose signature cheer had earned him his nickname. These men mostly chatted among themselves about times gone by, as if oblivious to the ball game on the field.

The game went quickly, taking only eighty-two minutes to complete as Charley Hall kept the Senators at bay and little-used outfielder Olaf Henriksen became the hero of the day with a third-inning, bases-loaded triple that broke the game open. Tris Speaker was carried off the field after an errant pitch hit his leg just below the kneecap, and he was taken back to Put's by ambulance. Joe Riggert knocked out the final Boston hit in the old park, an inside-the-park home run over the center fielder's head in the bottom of the eighth to make the score 8–1. Washington threatened in the ninth, but after Germany Schaefer singled—the last hit at Huntington Avenue—Kid Elberfeld hit a ground ball to Larry Gardner at third. He flipped the ball to second baseman Jack Lewis, and the game was done.

On his typewriter Tim Murnane tapped out an epitaph:

The park was considered one of the best to see a ballgame, as the light was good and the grounds roomy. The old stand and bleachers will soon be torn down and nothing left to show where once fierce battles were fought to the music of loyal fans.

In saying farewell to the Huntington-av Park, it will only mean a welcome to the magnificent new home the Boston Americans will occupy next season in the Back Bay Fens, just as handy as the old park, too ... Goodby season of 1911. Goodby to the Huntington-av Grounds.

Hello, Fenway Park.

The stand is a single deck structure with a roof of mill construction on a steel frame. The deck is reinforced concrete throughout, the roof being carried by steel columns bolted to the tops of reinforced concrete columns carrying the deck. The only wood used is in the movable folding opera chairs, roof joists, sheathing, office interiors and screed to which chair legs are attached.

—
Engineering Record

I
T WAS JUST
another job.

As architect James McLaughlin bent over his drafting table in late September and early October of 1911 in his office on Atlantic Avenue and made a few last minor changes to the plans he had worked on, off and on, for more than two years, he probably did not hazard to think that anything about this most recent venture would prove to be of lasting significance. It was just another project, albeit a unique one: he had never designed such a structure before and would never do so again. It was neither the largest nor the most lucrative project of his career, nor the most demanding. During his lifetime it would bring him little acclaim and serve as nothing more than a footnote to his career.

It was perhaps most notable because of the name of his client, General Charles Taylor, and his son, John I., of the
Boston Globe
Taylors. McLaughlin knew that if he pleased them it would certainly help open some doors for other notable clients. Yet that was just as true when McLaughlin dealt with a school committee over the building of a schoolhouse, or a church board over the building of a church or parsonage.

This is not to say that as McLaughlin bent over his table and worked on the design he did not give the project his full attention—he did. His career was just beginning to flourish, and he treated every project with the same care and attention regardless of its size. But this job, a home for the Red Sox, was different from anything McLaughlin had ever done before or would ever do again.

McLaughlin was thirty-seven years old in 1911 and in the last few years had established a reputation as one of Boston's leading young architects. Born James Earnest McLaughlin in October 1873 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was the fourth of seven children of Mary and James McLaughlin, both of whom had been born in Ireland. McLaughlin's father was one of the first portrait photographers in Halifax, but after he passed away the family immigrated to Boston, in 1885, settling with thousands of other first- and second-generation Irish in Lower Roxbury when they rented a place on Homestead Street, only two miles south of the Huntington Avenue Grounds. A good student, McLaughlin thrived in his new country. By 1898 he was already trained as a draftsman, but it is unclear precisely how he became an architect. Until the turn of the century few schools provided training in architecture—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered the first degree in architecture in 1865. Many architects learned the profession through a combination of apprenticeships, self-study, and even mail-order courses. At any rate, by 1900 the U.S. census listed his occupation as an architect. About the same time he opened his office on Atlantic Avenue under the name James E. McLaughlin, presumably to differentiate his work from that of the notable architect James McLaughlin of Cincinnati.

His Irish heritage served him well, for after the election of Hugh O'Brien as Boston's first Irish mayor in 1884 the Irish took full political control of the city of Boston. Government contracts, which had previously been nearly impossible for anyone with an Irish surname to obtain, suddenly became available. Fear of fire and the cost of insurance for wood-frame buildings, combined with a growing population, inspired a spate of new construction throughout the city, and McLaughlin was able to take advantage of the situation. In a short time he began to win contracts to design schools and other small municipal buildings, using more modern construction methods based on steel, concrete, and brick instead of wood. McLaughlin generally earned a commission of between $3,000 and $8,000 for each building he designed. But just because McLaughlin designed public buildings did not mean he was a hack—he was a student of architecture, and there was a healthy competition for such projects. McLaughlin followed design trends closely, and his buildings, while classically based, often acknowledged contemporary design trends that set them apart.

Most of his early work demonstrated what was known as the Georgian Revival style and featured predominantly brick exteriors. One job begat another, and in only a few years McLaughlin was well established in his field. In 1908 he married Mary Ratigan, and the couple, who would never have a child, soon took up residence on Reservoir Road in Chestnut Hill. The young architect was not only a good businessman but a good citizen, and he did his civic duty by serving on several charitable boards, most notably those of St. Elizabeth's Hospital and other institutions connected with the Catholic Church. McLaughlin was also active in the Boston Society of Architects.

If McLaughlin had an architectural philosophy, it was this: his buildings were neither pretentious nor florid, but conservative and practical. While McLaughlin's designs were essentially utilitarian, at the same time they were precise, balanced, aesthetically pleasing, and built to last. His structures were, in a sense, organic to themselves—no portion of them appeared superfluous, out of place, or out of proportion. His building materials were purely New England—besides red brick, limestone and local granite dominated the facades of the public buildings he was most known for, yet through the use of subtle raised brick panels, recessed centers, and other strategies, he managed to give the otherwise plain faces textural interest. As he once wrote in an album he created to introduce his firm's work to prospective clients, McLaughlin's goal was to "construct and complete the buildings within the amounts appropriated," to deliver "results that are satisfactory at minimum cost, without sacrificing design, utility or other requirements," and to create a "design in harmony, with ... carefully designed interiors, and inviting, non-stereotyped exteriors."

Most of his buildings fit well into their surroundings. Little about their design overtly called attention to them; they seemed to have always been there, either as a part of the original building or a part of the neighborhood. That explains why McLaughlin's work, while still on display in virtually every Boston neighborhood and in many other cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts, has been overlooked by architectural scholars. Over time the ubiquitous nature of his work has made it almost invisible, and all but forgotten.

The Taylors became aware of McLaughlin through his work for the city. When McLaughlin was approached by John I. Taylor and first commissioned to design a new ballpark, he was given certain conditions. Although McLaughlin's initial drawings referred to the park by the generic name of "Boston American Base Ball Park," by the fall of 1911 it was common knowledge that the name of the new ballpark would be Fenway Park, for as Taylor explained, "It's in the Fenway section of Boston, isn't it?" All Boston ballparks to date had been commonly known by their geographical location, such as the Dartmouth Street Park (aka Union Park), which served as the home field for the Union Association club in 1884; the Congress Street Grounds, which was occupied by several teams from 1890 to 1896; the South End Grounds; and the Huntington Avenue Grounds. There was no reason to treat the new ballpark any differently. Besides, the name was already familiar. Owing to its location adjacent to the Fens, the Huntington Avenue Grounds itself had occasionally been referred to as "the Fenway Park," even within the pages of the
Globe.
Officially calling the new place "Fenway Park" was like putting on a comfortable old shoe.