Inside Fenway Park

Home to the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts is also the oldest ballpark in America. In 2012, this great American landmark will celebrate its 100th birthday. Every year, from April to October, the Red Sox play 81 home games; but even with so many games, and even with a seating capacity of nearly 40,000, Fenway Park has sold out every game since the middle of 2003. This means that it can be difficult to get tickets to a game at Fenway, and you usually will need to either plan in advance or somehow get very lucky if you want to enjoy the Fenway Park experience; if you do make it to a game at Fenway, here are three historic places inside the park you will surely want to visit.

1) The red seat: There is one seat in right field, among rows and rows of green seats, that is painted completely red. This seat marks the spot of a Ted Williams home run hit on June 9, 1946. Ted Williams - widely considered to be the best hitter who ever played the game - hit the ball 502 feet, where the ball hit the man sitting in this seat directly on the head (don't worry - the man was okay!). The red seat commemorates that home run, which even sixty-plus years later is the longest home run ever recorded at Fenway Park.

2) Pesky's Pole: The right field foul pole at Fenway Park stands closer to home plate than any other foul pole in baseball, only 302 feet away. The outfield wall, however, quickly moves further and further from home plate, making one of the deepest right fields in the Majors. This odd configuration allows some balls to tail around the right field pole, giving a home run to balls that would have been outs, while the depth in the rest of right field gives outs to what might have been home runs at other parks. The pole itself is named for Johnny Pesky, a Red Sox legend from the 1940s who, although not known as a power hitter, had a tendency to wrap home runs around the pole. When you visit Pesky's Pole, you will discover the signatures of hundreds of fans, climbing up the pole.

3) The Green Monster: The Green Monster is the most well-known feature of Fenway. The Green Monster is the wall in left field, which stands 37 feet high - by far the tallest outfield wall in baseball. Unfortunately, you cannot go on top of the Green Monster unless you have tickets for the seats up there, but even a view alongside the Green Monster is breathtaking.

If you manage to visit Fenway Park for a game someday, don't just watch the game - get there early, and enjoy the historic sites that come with the Fenway Park Experience.

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