Fenway Park has indeed crept along an unfortunate path from pure baseball toward… something else. This progression has come in fits and starts, but it never stops. It’s creeping along.
In older days
As a youngster in the 1960s and 1970s, I became aware of things other teams were doing to their ballparks. The White Sox under owner Bill Veeck created a 130-foot wide “Monster” scoreboard which “exploded” with fireworks, pinwheels, and sound effects after home runs. The Orioles played the bugle call “Charge!” at certain times. The Athletics (of Kansas City) installed a giant horn that blasted after home runs. These all were quite audible on the radio broadcasts. These were the first forays into “baseball as spectacle”, or “let’s entertain the fans in other ways”.
Meanwhile, advertising was absent until 1976, with the exception of the Jimmy Fund sign on the roof in deep right, above Section 1. The only visible commercial advertising was seen beyond Fenway’s walls, including the 3 Monks whiskey billboard beyond left center (replaced by the Windsor Canadian billboard in the 1970s), the neon Buck Printing Co. sign way beyond the bleachers, and of course the illuminated Cities Service cloverleaf in Kenmore Square, which was replaced with the Citgo animated neon sign in 1965. Beginning with installation of the first electronic scoreboard after the 1975 season, advertising began returning to inside Fenway Park itself. From then until now, the amount of advertising has been increasing incrementally every year.
The modern age — post-1990
Loss of purity has happened in three basic ways: more intrusive advertising, louder sounds played far more frequently, and more cheerleading.
Advertising is probably the most unavoidable of these three things. In today’s world, we are assaulted with advertising everywhere. But there are different forms and types of advertising. At the modest end of the scale are unilluminated signs, for example the W.B. Mason sign on the Monster. It’s similar to early 20th century advertising, and though it’s large, we get used to it. It’s just “there”. Like all the other painted signage, such as that on the short walls ringing the playing surface, it fades into the background of our minds.
Illuminated signage is more intrusive. The Gulf sign on the wall in Section 33, painted on the brick wall when first installed, was replaced with a mounted 3-D sign in 2019; it is brightly lit indirectly. The Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and Samuel Adams signs are internally lit and enormous. These are impossible to ignore, but like the old Buck Printing and current Citgo signs, become part of the landscape, and intrude on our experience minimally.
The 2019 Gulf sign in deep left. |
But what’s worse are the advertisements on the videoboards that move, flash, or both. Those intrude on our experience a lot more than passive signage. The annoyance factor increases with the steady increase of square footage of videoboards in the park. Having all the signage show the same moving ads is the worst. At least the ads don’t create a 360 degree panorama as they do at some parks.
Those video boards
The enormous videoboards at Fenway had their origin in 1976. The first centerfield scoreboard, 40 by 24 feet, mainly showed dot-matrix text using ordinary light bulbs, but it had capability of showing video clips and ads. At first it created controversy, as fans didn’t like the idea of tinkering with Fenway. But it became a fan favorite, and paved the way for bigger and better boards.
The 1976 scoreboard. Saltalamacchia's name would not have fit. |
Early dot-matrix boards on lower fascia |
2016 LED boards on both fascias |
Providing baseball information on these strips is welcome to this fan, but the strips can be not only used but abused. Other parks realized, “Hey, we can do light shows with those ribbons; let’s create spectacular effects and wow the fans!” Bizarre undulating patterns were invented for them, along with comic animation, sound-level-meter mimicking, repeated words, cheerleading prompts, and flashing celebrations. All that is most unpleasant unless you’re a video engineer. Thankfully, most of that didn’t happen at Fenway. But snippets of that have crept in.
Unpleasant light displays on the fascia boards. |
I did not like seeing all of Fenway’s videoboards, large and small, coordinate themselves in a mass display. The first such use of special effects that I remember was when Craig Kimbrel was called in from the bullpen, and the boards all showed his name and a backdrop of flames. Supposedly that was supposed to suggest how hot he was, but a fan next to me said “Kimbrel is about to go down in flames again!”. Coordinated video assault (all screens synchronized) has increased since then. One of the worst ways is to create a fake sound level meter as a set of moving bars. This does seem like trying to be like other parks, and is, to me, decidedly un-Fenwaylike.
Craig Kimbrel about to go down in flames? |
Sound bar effects are unpleasant. |
The sound onslaught
One great loss of baseball purity has been caused by louder sounds, different sounds, and more frequent sounds dished out to the fans.
One of the most common complaints I have heard from fans I sit next to is that the speaker volume is much too high. It is hard to chat with people between innings because of those speakers. That’s simple science; the decibel levels will be checked this year and we’ll see just how loud they are.
What I don’t like is that the songs are played at every moment, from well before the game to many minutes after. This musical pervasiveness has crept into Fenway gradually. Walk-up songs for batters began in the mid 1990s, as did entering songs for pitchers. In the early 20th century, celebratory sounds began to be played after Sox players reached base. In about 2016, a “woo woo” sound began to be played after opponents struck out. (Joe Castiglione has said repeatedly that “they’re just copying the Yankees”, who have a high pitched four-note strikeout phrase). In 2021, sounds began after opponents made outs other than strikeouts. And in late 2021, we first heard sounds during opponent at-bats when the count reached two strikes.
Many of the new sounds are not musical songs, but little bits of songs or drum tracks that last only a few seconds. They are completely unnecessary and intrusive. Some bits have rhythms that try to get fans to clap, and so are trending into the realm of cheerleading, an area of formerly virgin territory in our ballpark.
Cheerleading
Most visitors to Fenway know that we have very dedicated and passionate fans here, who know perfectly well when to cheer without being told. Even in the mid 1960s, when we had poorly performing teams, fans spontaneously cheered when the mood struck. In those days, there were two ways of expressing “Let’s get something going!” besides yelling. One was steady rhythmic clapping, that kept a constant tempo over the course of several pitches, unlike today when it gradually speeds up until it dissolves in randomness. The other was a chant that could also last a long time: “We want a hit! We want a hit!”.
In summary, there are many ways in which Fenway Park has become a very different place since the 1960s. Some have been very positive, like the expansion of seating, and the generous supplying of baseball information on the scoreboards. Some have reflected general societal change, like the evolving music options. But some have been downright annoying. I hope the painful volume level of the speakers can be adjusted, and the cheerleading attempts ended.
The worst is yet to come
- video advertising on the Green Monster itself. If the wall was totally plastered in advertising (except for the scoreboard) in the early years, why not cover the wall with video panels? Imagine how much money could be raised by putting up truly spectacular, Times-Square-worthy signage? It could be set to green while the game is played, but then all flashing and moving advertising between innings and before and after games. But do we fans want that? No!
- Installing digitized strobe lighting in all the light towers, so that all those individual lights could be synchronized to produce truly spectacular light shows after home runs, after victories, and even between innings. Blindingly bright lights are already seen at Fenway concerts, but those are taken down after the shows. And why not add laser lights streaming around? And how about replacing the light towers with those “toothbrush” style towers seen in Cleveland and other parks? But do we fans want any of this? No!
- Installing a video ribbon that completely encircles the park. It could go all around the fascia below the suite level, across the area where the retired numbers are posted (those would be moved), across the Truly Terrace, then in a newly installed strip below the big main videoboard, then downward passing underneath the centerfield camera balcony, then along the top of the Monster. Then more continuously moving advertising could encircle us, and we could much better be told when to cheer and when to celebrate. Many parks do this… why not us? But do we fans want to ever see this? No!
- Speaking of cheering, we don’t have flashing signs now telling us when to make noise, when to clap, when to yell, when to stand. Why not? It would be a simple matter to create the video and sound effects to do all that. Every other park does, so why not us? But do we fans want that? No!
- Adding to the noise and sound effects during the game, during at-bats and between batters. We already do that, but why not add bugle calls, rhythmic clapping, call-and-response cheers, bump-bump-bump-bump organ chords? Why not noises to celebrate Sox batters taking pitches for a ball? Again, we have the technology to imitate Tropicana Field and all the others. But do we fans want that? No!
- Adding more entertainment between innings. Other stadiums have character races around the warning track, like the Nationals have racing presidents. Other stadiums have “kiss cams”. Why not us? But do we fans want these? No!