I led a group of Boston Red Sox fans yesterday killing a few hours before heading to Baltimore for the Red Sox-Orioles game. They wanted to see the usual attractions, but I had something special for them after seeing the mall monuments – RFK Stadium.
A friend cleared the group to come inside the stadium named for a Massachusetts man that most in the group were old enough to have probably voted for. You remember – Robert F. Kennedy. Former attorney general under his brother and president John F. Kennedy. Killed by an assassin in 1968 when on the brink of probably winning the presidency himself. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
I know, you’re thinking “What idiot doesn’t know that?” Well, you’re be surprised.
Anyway, RFK is one crumbling old barn that celebrates its 50th anniversary on Saturday. But, it’s my old barn. My dad took me to Senators games there. I covered many Redskins games there. Saw quite a few concerts, too.
So it’s always a good day when I go inside RFK. The rich folks can have FedEx Field with its fancy seats. I come to watch games and RFK was great for baseball and football. I even co-wrote a book called Hail to RFK when the Redskins left in 1996 that’s still available on Amazon.com thanks to digital printing.
Anyway, the group sat in the stands while I regaled them with stories of RFK. Hey, they like old parks given their team plays at Fenway Stadium. It was a lot of fun talking about something than the usual statues. There just isn’t enough standing sports history around town to make it a regular tour.
Ironically, I was a little hesitant to take a group from Boston because of accent differences. I’ve traveled to Beantown many times and more than once been reduced to pointing to food because neither the server nor I could understand each other. Seriously. That happened once in Japan, but at least we spoke different languages.
Maybe these people were from South Boston because we could understand each other well. Always a plus. They’re welcome back anytime.
