Eagle Feathers #204 – Diamonds of the Park

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

The distance from Somerville to Boston’s 4 Jersey Street, also known as Fenway Park, is three miles by the way the crow files. This 108-year-old shrine to Major League Baseball is the oldest in the nation. While named the “Boston” Red Sox, the team and the sport have many connections with Somerville.

• Charles Taylor, founder of The Boston Globe, was a Somerville Alderman who raised his family on Belmont Street. He also built Fenway Park. Taylor’s son, John, gave the team its name, the Red Sox.
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• In 1910 President William Howard Taft was a huge baseball fan and was the original Commander in Chief to throw out the first pitch in baseball. He started a tradition that still exists today. He also originated the “Seventh Inning Stretch” during the same game. Two months later, Somerville honored his presence with a huge Fourth of July Parade.
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• In 1914, Somerville’s Brother Gilbert Cairns, a graduate of St. Joseph’s High School in Union Square, discovered Babe Ruth, the future Sultan of Swat.
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• Somerville’s Harold Joseph “Pie” Traynor learned to play ball at Trum Field, often playing barehanded. Sadly, he slipped through the Red Sox hands. He played for Pittsburgh and was later their manager and scout. He was inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame and was baseball’s best third basemen for ten years straight.
• Daniel “Danny” MacFayden played baseball for Somerville High School. This spectacled baseball player with horn-rimmed glasses pitched for both The Red Sox and The Yankees. He once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, back to back.
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• One of the most famous poems about baseball, Casey At The Bat, had two possible authors. One was Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a Harvard-educated, wealthy mill owner. The other was Somerville’s George Whitefield D’Vys, a writer and correspondent. D’Vys was the longest claimant until after many years when the contesting finally stopped. Whatever side you take, the David and Goliath or the Rags to Riches wannabe, the poem triumphs.
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• During the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, Somerville’s Horace Partridge, who Partridge Avenue is named after, was the owner of the Partridge Sporting Good Company, the oldest athletic goods house in America. He was the official supplier of the uniforms of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves and also much of their equipment.
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• Former Somerville Alderman Tony Lafuente’s company, Flagraphics, Inc., has created Red Sox flags, banners, and bunting that have adorned the park from the bottom of Fenway’s Green Monster to the top of the John Hancock Tower.
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• Through the years, many businessmen who made Somerville their home advertised their companies at Fenway. Among them were Harvey Hood and his H. P. Hood Milk company; co-inventor, William Nickerson, of Gillette, the razor blade company and Charles Taylor of The Boston Globe newspaper.

These were our “Boys of Somer — ville!”