Huntington Avenue Grounds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huntington Avenue American League Base Ball Grounds is the full name of a baseball stadium that formerly stood in Boston, Massachusetts. Home to the Boston Red Sox (known simply as 'Boston', or the 'Boston Americans' before 1908) from 1901-1911, the stadium sat 11,500. The stadium was located across the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad tracks from the South End Grounds, home of the Boston Braves.
The stadium was the site of the first World Series game in 1903, and also saw the first perfect game in the modern era, thrown by Cy Young on May 5, 1904. The playing field was fairly large by modern standards. Sources say that it was 350 feet to left field, 440 feet to left center field, 530 feet to center field in 1901 and 635 feet to center field in 1908, and 280 feet to right field in 1901 and 320 feet to right field in 1908. The field had many quirks not seen in modern baseball stadiums, including patches of sand in the outfield where grass would not grow, and a tool shed in deep center field that was actually in play.
The Huntington Avenue Grounds was demolished after the Red Sox left at the beginning of the 1912 season to play at Fenway Park. Solomon Court at Cabot Center, an indoor athletic venue belonging to Northeastern University, now stands on the site. A plaque and a statue of Cy Young commemorate the history of this ballpark in what is now called World Series Way.
