The best baseball books for baseball fans and why they are worth reading

Fenway 1912: “The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year”

No matter which team you root for, Fenway Park is a landmark of glory. It’s the oldest major league ballpark that is still standing. It predates the now-gone Ebbets Field by one year, and Wrigley Field by two.

Fenway Park opened its doors six days after the sinking of the Titanic. It replaced the former home of the Red Sox, the Huntington Avenue Grounds in 1912.  Van Ness St wasn’t there yet. Boston was a city that resembled its 19th-century self far more than the version we know now.

This is the story of Fenway in its first year; in a year forever marked by tragedy, but a year changed, for the better, by the opening of one of the most historic sports venues the world has ever, and will ever, see.

Glenn Stout transports you to Boston. He makes you feel like you’re standing on the old, cobblestone roads of the city, watching cars slowly drive by, puffing and trudging along. He puts you in the mind of Red Sox legend, and Hall of Famer, Tris Speaker.

Fenway, in all its glory, also has its complexities. It has memories of the 1912 World Series, in which they won, beating the New York Giants.

This is a book about the Red Sox, in a time before Babe Ruth. Ruth, in fact, would not put on a Boston uniform until1914, two years after crowds first cheered at Fenway.

Though it is often hard to imagine baseball before Babe Ruth, this story does the imagining, and the exploring, for us.