MLB History: Fenway Park, Wrigley Field debuted April 20th
Both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park share April 20 as the date of their first official games in Major League Baseball.
On this date more than 100 years ago, long before luxury suites and high-priced beer and cheesy video scoreboard marriage proposals, Fenway Park hosted its first official MLB game. On April 20, 1912, the Red Sox played the New York Highlanders, who would become the New York Yankees the very next season and would eventually become the Red Sox’ most-hated arch-rivals.
The opening of Fenway Park coincided with a new owner, James McAleer. This was still two years before baby-faced pitcher Babe Ruth would join the club in 1914 and eight years before Ruth would be sold to the Yankees before the 1920 season by a different Red Sox owner, Harry Frazee. If Twitter existed when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, it would have exploded with the hot, flaming passion of a thousand fiery suns.
The Red Sox home opener was supposed to be played on April 18, but the game was rained out, as were two Patriots Day games scheduled for the 19th. When Fenway Park finally opened on the 20th for its first official game, fanfare was muted because of the sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic just five days before. If you’ve seen the movie named after the ship, you know that the Titanic was very sinkable, except for the door that saved the life of Rose but, apparently, wasn’t big enough to share with Jack and save him from drowning to death in the Atlantic Ocean.
The ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park was thrown by Boston mayor John F. Fitzgerald, the maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy. The mayor was a member of the Royal Rooters, a group comprised of die-hard Red Sox fans. The original Royal Rooters disbanded in 1918 but groups of Royal Rooters live on in various locations around the country. Their theme song is “Tessie.” Here’s the modern version sung by the Dropkick Murphys.