Seeing the Red Sox fail in such miserable fashion on Opening Day yesterday made me turn off the TV in disgust and do something else, like, read. Later in the day, I was watching the Red Sox highlights last night on NECN (and by that, I mean lowlights). Just after they showed newly minted closer Alfredo Aceves give up the winning the run to the Tigers, anchor Latoyia Edwards said that it’s still “too early to panic.” Too early? Ridiculous! Sox fans are back to their old, neurotic ways of saying the season’s over just as it’s beginning, and yet…what with the recent spate of bad news and reports of bad blood in the clubhouse, it does seem as if the team is already starting on the wrong two left feet. Fortunately, whenever you are like me and have to turn off the game, there are a spate of books out about the Olde Towne Team to keep you occupied.

What’s a better way to ignore the team’s ignoble present than to read about its ballpark’s storied past? Over the past year, we’ve been getting book after book about the 100th anniversary of Fenway:

The best is Field of Our Fathers: An Illustrated History of Fenway Park 1912–2012 (Triumph Books), by Richard A. Johnson, who wrote “Fenway 100” in this month’s issue and is the curator of the Sports Museum in Boston and co-author of that seminal volume every Sox fan should own, Red Sox Century. It serves as both a reference and handsome coffee table book with tons of information and archival images from Johnson’s day job. Neatest of all are the “keepsakes,” facsimiles of actual World Series game tickets and posters scattered throughout the book. It must not have been cheap to produce, so at $35 it’s a steal. Continue reading “Six Fenway Park Books Worth Reading” »