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 19^th. When Fenway Park finally opened on the 20^th 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.

Tessie sung by the Dropkick Murphys at Fenway Park

The first official game at Fenway Park featured Buck O’Brien pitching for the Red Sox and Ray Caldwell for the Highlanders. Neither pitcher lasted long in the game. Caldwell was yanked after three-and-a-third innings. O’Brien only made it through four.

Red Sox reliever Charlie Hall pitched the final seven innings in the 11-inning victory for the Red Sox. After trailing at one point 5-1, the Red Sox came back to tie it in the bottom of the eighth, then won it in the bottom of the eleventh inning by a final score of 7-6.

The Red Sox lineup had Hall of Famers Harry Hooper and Tris Speaker playing right field and center field, respectively. Hooper couldn’t muster up a hit in the game, but Speaker was three-for-six with two RBI. The most notable player in the Highlanders lineup was Hal Chase. He was a slick-fielding first baseman who would eventually be kicked out of baseball after years of suspicion that he was involved in fixing games.

According to the box score at Baseball-Reference.com, the 11-inning game lasted over three hours, which was much longer than a typical game at the time. Of course, these days Red Sox—Yankees games seem to last nearly four hours every time they get together. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Four years after Fenway Park hosted its first official MLB game, a ballpark in Chicago did the same. The ballpark we now know as Wrigley Field was originally called Weeghman Park, named after owner Charles H. Weeghman. Weeghman owned a Chicago-based team in the Federal League, which popped up as a rival league to MLB for two years (1914-1915). When the Federal League folded, Weeghman bought the Cubs and moved them to his ballpark.

This was still many years before the Wrigley Field bleachers and scoreboard were created. Also, there was no ivy on the walls in those days. Bill Veeck would have ivy planted in September of 1937. Fifty-one years later, in 1988, Wrigley Field would be the last MLB park to have lights installed.