It used to be that being a Red Sox fan was like being Eeyore in a Winnie the Pooh movie.
You know, resigned to defeat or just knowing that something bad was about to happen.
And for nearly a century, it sure seemed that way for Red Sox Nation. You can rattle off names or sentence fragments to a Sox fan and they will know what it means. No need to elaborate.
Bucky Dent. Bill Buckner. One pitch away. Leaving Pedro in the game. Tony C. Tracy Stallard. Enos Slaughter and Johnny Pesky. Denny Galehouse.
And of course, Babe Ruth and the Curse of the Bambino.
But always, the Fenway faithful remained true. Finally, they were rewarded with World Series victories in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018.
“They’re not the tragic, accursed figures of not so long ago anymore,” Jayson Stark wrote in 2008.
Call it the Fenway Effect. That is what historian David Krell explores in The Fenway Effect: Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox (University of Nebraska Press; $34.95; hardback; 250 pages), framing the Red Sox as a cultural phenomenon in New England.
Krell is no stranger to writing about the effect of baseball teams popular culture. He wrote “Our Bums”: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory, and Popular Culture (2015) and edited The New York Yankees in Popular Culture (2019) and The New York Mets in Popular Culture (2020).
Whether their teams won or lost, Red Sox fans remained “Boston Strong,” and that is how Krell opens The Fenway Effect.
He revisits David Ortiz’s profane but utterly appropriate speech days at Fenway after the bombing at the Boston Marathon in April 2013.
“I never got booed at Fenway Park, and that’s why I ride and die with those fans,’” Ortiz said in a February 2023 interview.
You know, resigned to defeat or just knowing that something bad was about to happen.
And for nearly a century, it sure seemed that way for Red Sox Nation. You can rattle off names or sentence fragments to a Sox fan and they will know what it means. No need to elaborate.
Bucky Dent. Bill Buckner. One pitch away. Leaving Pedro in the game. Tony C. Tracy Stallard. Enos Slaughter and Johnny Pesky. Denny Galehouse.
And of course, Babe Ruth and the Curse of the Bambino.
But always, the Fenway faithful remained true. Finally, they were rewarded with World Series victories in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018.
“They’re not the tragic, accursed figures of not so long ago anymore,” Jayson Stark wrote in 2008.
Call it the Fenway Effect. That is what historian David Krell explores in The Fenway Effect: Cultural History of the Boston Red Sox (University of Nebraska Press; $34.95; hardback; 250 pages), framing the Red Sox as a cultural phenomenon in New England.
Krell is no stranger to writing about the effect of baseball teams popular culture. He wrote “Our Bums”: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory, and Popular Culture (2015) and edited The New York Yankees in Popular Culture (2019) and The New York Mets in Popular Culture (2020).
Whether their teams won or lost, Red Sox fans remained “Boston Strong,” and that is how Krell opens The Fenway Effect.
He revisits David Ortiz’s profane but utterly appropriate speech days at Fenway after the bombing at the Boston Marathon in April 2013.
“I never got booed at Fenway Park, and that’s why I ride and die with those fans,’” Ortiz said in a February 2023 interview.
The Boston area was blessed with the Celtics dynasty in the NBA during the 1960s and the New England Patriots rolling to nine Super Bowl appearances and six titles over the past quarter century. But the Red Sox were different. The emotional tug was so much stronger. Every disappointment brought their fans closer.
“Expecting something bad is going to happen is just being a pessimist, but knowing that you are going to be hit by a garbage truck in the butt while picking up your dog's (excrement) — that is being a Red Sox fan,” David Needle wrote in 2001 for The Tufts Daily.
But that was before the Curse of Bambino was exorcised in 2004. That was the year the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS against the hated New York Yankees to sweep the next four games. Then, Boston beat St. Louis in the World Series for the city’s first MLB title since 1918.
The Fenway Effect goes beyond baseball. Krell writes about the iconic Citgo sign that towers over the Green Monster, calling it “a bedrock of Red Sox culture.” It is more than just an advertisement, and as Alison Frazee, the executive director of the Boston Preservation Society stated, “most viewers don’t associate it with the Citgo brand,” instead linking it to the Red Sox.
Krell writes an interesting history of the sign, noting that there is even a miniature version of Fenway Park for a Little League park that also includes a Citgo sign. Cities Service originally had a gas station behind the left field wall at Fenway, but as time went on, the sign became a signature feature of the ballpark, and not the oil company. And at times, it was a controversial issue among Boston politicians.
Fiction has played a park in Fenway’s lore, with the successful television series “Cheers” showcasing former pitcher Sam Malone owning a bar where everybody knows your name. Ted Danson’s recovering alcoholic character — running a bar, no less — and his cast of regulars gave viewers someone to identify with.
It also put Boston on the television map, Krell writes. For decades, television shows appeared to be based out of New York City, from I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners to even Car 54, Where Are You? Other shows were based out of California, like The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters and Mr. Ed.
Krell writes that the most notable show before Cheers based out of Boston was Banacek, about an intrepid insurance investigator. I’d argue in favor of Paper Chase, which starred John Houseman as the impossibly crusty Harvard Law School professor (Houseman won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film version).
Given Boston’s longtime inferiority complex, it seemed only fitting that the regulars at Cheers thought that Red Sox star Wade Boggs was an imposter sent to prank them by a competing bar.
Krell also mentions Fever Pitch, the 2005 romantic comedy starring Jimmy Fallon as obsessed Red Sox fan Ben Wrightman and Drew Barrymore as Lindsey Meeks.
“Lindsey, will you go to Opening Day with me?” Fallon asks while dropping to one knee and opening a velvet jewelry box. You get the idea.
Entwined with the Red Sox since the days of Ted Williams is the Jimmy Fund, which benefited cancer patients at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Krell outlines the history of the charity, how the Splendid Splinter would visit children and insist that they be kept private. When a child told Williams that he wanted to become a baseball announcer, the Red Sox star arranged for Boston play-by-play legend Curt Gowdy to visit him, Krell writes.
Then there is Narragansett Beer, which was always linked to Gowdy — “Hi Neighbor! Have a ’Gansett,” he would say as he came on the air. Gowdy, Krell writes, provided New Englanders with “ cultural touchstone” during a progressive and “sometimes volatile” period. Gowdy was smooth, conversational and was a soothing voice from 1951 to 1965 in Boston, a period where the Red Sox finished as high as third place in the American League three times.
From 1961 to 1965, Boston finished sixth, seventh, eighth (twice) and ninth in the 10-team A.L. race. Red Sox fans needed Gowdy’s reassuring voice — and lots of ’Gansetts.
Krell revisits many difficult games for the Red Sox, including the 1978 playoff game against the hated Yankees and the disastrous end to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. But there is also a recap of one of the Fall Classic’s most memorable contests — Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, when Carlton Fisk willed a long fly ball to stay fair for a dramatic home run.
Krell also gives credit to Bernie Carbo, whose three-run homer tied the game and Dwight Evans’ catch in the 11th inning to rob Joe Morgan of a home run, setting up Fisk’s heroics one inning later. Many baseball fans remember Carbo’s pinch-hit blast; only truly diehard fans recall Evans’ catch and throw that doubled up Ken Griffey Sr. to end the inning.
Krell’s narrative is crisp and casual, lending a relaxed air to his subject. The former MSNBC producer has also written 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK in 2021; and last year’s Do You Believe in Magic?: Baseball and America in the Groundbreaking Year of 1966.
The Fenway Effect is a more contemporary look at a city that loves its baseball. There have been many books written about the Dodgers, for example. But very few authors have taken the path Krell did, examining the cultural effects of what it means to being a Red Sox fan. He ends the book with “Voices of the Fans,” with diehard Sox fans unabashedly revealing their love for the team.
Krell’s effort provides a different look at a city and franchise that both enjoy being out front. They are no longer like Eeyore.
Like singing along to “Sweet Caroline” in the bottom of the eighth inning, reading about the culture of the Red Sox never felt so good.
To be honest, I prefer “Dirty Water” by The Standells. That opening guitar lick is awesome and they sum up a Red Sox fan’s feelings perfectly: “Boston, you’re my home. Oh, you’re my No. 1 place.”
“Sports are an integral part of Boston’s culture, and if you live here, it’s worth being a fan,” Cloe Axelson wrote in September 2023.
Krell shows the reader why that is so with another solid effort.
“Expecting something bad is going to happen is just being a pessimist, but knowing that you are going to be hit by a garbage truck in the butt while picking up your dog's (excrement) — that is being a Red Sox fan,” David Needle wrote in 2001 for The Tufts Daily.
But that was before the Curse of Bambino was exorcised in 2004. That was the year the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS against the hated New York Yankees to sweep the next four games. Then, Boston beat St. Louis in the World Series for the city’s first MLB title since 1918.
The Fenway Effect goes beyond baseball. Krell writes about the iconic Citgo sign that towers over the Green Monster, calling it “a bedrock of Red Sox culture.” It is more than just an advertisement, and as Alison Frazee, the executive director of the Boston Preservation Society stated, “most viewers don’t associate it with the Citgo brand,” instead linking it to the Red Sox.
Krell writes an interesting history of the sign, noting that there is even a miniature version of Fenway Park for a Little League park that also includes a Citgo sign. Cities Service originally had a gas station behind the left field wall at Fenway, but as time went on, the sign became a signature feature of the ballpark, and not the oil company. And at times, it was a controversial issue among Boston politicians.
Fiction has played a park in Fenway’s lore, with the successful television series “Cheers” showcasing former pitcher Sam Malone owning a bar where everybody knows your name. Ted Danson’s recovering alcoholic character — running a bar, no less — and his cast of regulars gave viewers someone to identify with.
It also put Boston on the television map, Krell writes. For decades, television shows appeared to be based out of New York City, from I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners to even Car 54, Where Are You? Other shows were based out of California, like The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters and Mr. Ed.
Krell writes that the most notable show before Cheers based out of Boston was Banacek, about an intrepid insurance investigator. I’d argue in favor of Paper Chase, which starred John Houseman as the impossibly crusty Harvard Law School professor (Houseman won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film version).
Given Boston’s longtime inferiority complex, it seemed only fitting that the regulars at Cheers thought that Red Sox star Wade Boggs was an imposter sent to prank them by a competing bar.
Krell also mentions Fever Pitch, the 2005 romantic comedy starring Jimmy Fallon as obsessed Red Sox fan Ben Wrightman and Drew Barrymore as Lindsey Meeks.
“Lindsey, will you go to Opening Day with me?” Fallon asks while dropping to one knee and opening a velvet jewelry box. You get the idea.
Entwined with the Red Sox since the days of Ted Williams is the Jimmy Fund, which benefited cancer patients at Children’s Hospital in Boston. Krell outlines the history of the charity, how the Splendid Splinter would visit children and insist that they be kept private. When a child told Williams that he wanted to become a baseball announcer, the Red Sox star arranged for Boston play-by-play legend Curt Gowdy to visit him, Krell writes.
Then there is Narragansett Beer, which was always linked to Gowdy — “Hi Neighbor! Have a ’Gansett,” he would say as he came on the air. Gowdy, Krell writes, provided New Englanders with “ cultural touchstone” during a progressive and “sometimes volatile” period. Gowdy was smooth, conversational and was a soothing voice from 1951 to 1965 in Boston, a period where the Red Sox finished as high as third place in the American League three times.
From 1961 to 1965, Boston finished sixth, seventh, eighth (twice) and ninth in the 10-team A.L. race. Red Sox fans needed Gowdy’s reassuring voice — and lots of ’Gansetts.
Krell revisits many difficult games for the Red Sox, including the 1978 playoff game against the hated Yankees and the disastrous end to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. But there is also a recap of one of the Fall Classic’s most memorable contests — Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, when Carlton Fisk willed a long fly ball to stay fair for a dramatic home run.
Krell also gives credit to Bernie Carbo, whose three-run homer tied the game and Dwight Evans’ catch in the 11th inning to rob Joe Morgan of a home run, setting up Fisk’s heroics one inning later. Many baseball fans remember Carbo’s pinch-hit blast; only truly diehard fans recall Evans’ catch and throw that doubled up Ken Griffey Sr. to end the inning.
Krell’s narrative is crisp and casual, lending a relaxed air to his subject. The former MSNBC producer has also written 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK in 2021; and last year’s Do You Believe in Magic?: Baseball and America in the Groundbreaking Year of 1966.
The Fenway Effect is a more contemporary look at a city that loves its baseball. There have been many books written about the Dodgers, for example. But very few authors have taken the path Krell did, examining the cultural effects of what it means to being a Red Sox fan. He ends the book with “Voices of the Fans,” with diehard Sox fans unabashedly revealing their love for the team.
Krell’s effort provides a different look at a city and franchise that both enjoy being out front. They are no longer like Eeyore.
Like singing along to “Sweet Caroline” in the bottom of the eighth inning, reading about the culture of the Red Sox never felt so good.
To be honest, I prefer “Dirty Water” by The Standells. That opening guitar lick is awesome and they sum up a Red Sox fan’s feelings perfectly: “Boston, you’re my home. Oh, you’re my No. 1 place.”
“Sports are an integral part of Boston’s culture, and if you live here, it’s worth being a fan,” Cloe Axelson wrote in September 2023.
Krell shows the reader why that is so with another solid effort.
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