How did the tradition of playing "Sweet Caroline" start at Fenway Park?
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It's actually not that exciting of an answer. A woman named Amy Tobey began working for the Red Sox through her job at BCN Productions, a film and video communications company, having interned for the Boston Bruins. Her assignment was to decide what music would be played at the park from 1998 to 2004.\n\nShe had noticed ''Sweet Caroline" was used at other sporting events, and she decided to send the sweetness over the Fenway speakers.\n\nThe song was picked up by fans, and the more it caught on, the more superstitious Tobey became about playing it.\n\nTobey would play the song somewhere between the seventh and ninth innings if the team was ahead, depending on whether she felt the team was going to win.\n\nShe didn't go by any specific margin of runs, but rather who the opponent was, and her gut instincts.\n\n''I actually considered it like a good luck charm," Tobey says. ''Even if they were just one run [ahead], I might still do it. It was just a feel."\n\nIn 2002, when new management took over at the park, they requested that Tobey play the song during the eighth inning of every game.\n\n''They liked it and they just loved the crowd reaction with it and stuff," she says.
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The origins and evolution of the various bat-and-ball games are murky, and many believe that baseball is primarily an American invention. However, many believe that it originated as an adaptation of the game of rounders, and was also influenced by the rules of cricket. As far back as the 1870s, American newspapers were referring to baseball as "The National Pastime" or "The National Game." An award-winning account of the origins of the game is David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). The publisher's description of the book notes that "David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the English game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all—the Abner Doubleday–Cooperstown story." In short, the debate on the game's origins may never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.
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Wrigley Field is known for the Boston ivy planted against the outfield wall in 1937 by Bill Veeck. No batted ball has ever hit the scoreboard, though Sam Snead did manage to hit it with a golf ball teed off from home plate.\n\nBefore 1937, though, Wrigley outfield was rather more spacious. There were other buildings on the west side of the property in 1914, and this compelled the designers to squeeze the structure between those buildings, resulting in the ballpark having a short right field, some 298 feet to the outer wall. The only bleachers were in the left and center field areas. \n\nDuring the off-season between 1922 and 1923, with the extraneous buildings cleared off, engineers took the unusual move of slicing the single-deck grandstand in two places, and rolling those stands 60 feet to the west. The gap was filled in with more seating, resulting in the noticeable "dog leg" in the stands on the first base side, barely visible at the lower right of the "friendly confines" photo accompanying this article. The diamond and the foul lines were rotated 3 degrees counterclockwise, providing room for additional rows of box seats all around foul ground, but resulting in a shallower left field. The bleachers were removed from that area and re-installed across right field. It was then about 360 feet to the outer right field wall, but an inner fence was constructed to cut the distance to 321.\n\nDuring the mid-1920s, the ballpark was upper-decked in two stages, the third-base (shady) side first, and then the first-base (sunny) side. But the bleachers were set. By the early 1930s, distance markers were posted: left field line, 364 feet; left-center against the outer wall, 372; left center, corner of bleachers, 364; deep center field, 440; right center, 354; right field line, 321.\n\nIn 1937, the Cubs announced plans to rebuild the bleachers in concrete instead of wood, to be fronted by brick that would soon be covered in ivy, and to build a new scoreboard. To make the outfield look more symmetrical and graceful, the plans called for extending the left field bleachers to a point closer to the corner. The gentle curves between the ends of the left and right field bleachers would become popularly known as the "wells".
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Boston Pilgrims (Red Sox) over the Pittsburg (they spelled it that way back then) Pirates, five games to three, (played best-of-nine) in 1903.  The next year, there was no world series due to a conflict between the American and National Leagues' Commissioners (This was before they united under Major League Baseball.) The next missed World Series was in 1994, due to the strike. This was the last year the Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the All-Star Game (They will host it again in 2006.).  Ten years later, in 2004, the Red Sox reverse the "Curse of the Bambino" in four games, a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, after coming from behind 3-0 in the ALCS to the New York Yankees, winning the pennant 4 games to three.
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Main article: History of baseball \nThe origins and evolution of the various bat-and-ball games are murky, and many believe that baseball is primarily an American invention. However, because of the similarity in its most basic form, of its rules and game-play, it is far more likely that it originated as an adaptation of the game of English rounders, vigaro and town ball. It was also influenced by the rules of cricket.\n\n \n1886 baseball demonstration at Conner Prairie living history museum.The first explicit references to baseball appear to come from England. The earliest known mention of the sport is in a 1744 publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book by John Newbery. It contains a wood-cut illustration of boys playing "baseball" (showing a similar set-up to the modern game) and a rhymed description of the sport. Also, a British letter dating from 1748 by Lady Hervey describes how the then Prince of Wales diverted his time playing baseball. The English author Jane Austen specifically mentions the game of baseball in her novel, Northanger Abbey, being played by the protagonist, Catherine Moreland. The book was first written in 1798 and revised until publication in 1803.\n\nAlexander Cartwright had a hand in compiling and publishing an early list of rules in 1845 (the so-called Knickerbocker Rules) to meet the demands of the already popular sport, and today's rules of baseball have evolved from them.\n\nAs far back as the 1870s, American newspapers were referring to baseball as "The National Pastime" or "The National Game." An award-winning account of the origins of the game is David Block's Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). The publisher's description of the book notes that "David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the English game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all—the Abner Doubleday–Cooperstown story." In short, the debate on the game's origins may never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.\n\nAnother early mention of the game can be found in an 1886 edition of Sporting Life magazine, in a letter from Dr. Matthew Harris of Boston, Massachusetts, formerly of St. Marys, Ontario, Canada, who details a base ball game played in Beachville, Ontario, Canada, on June 4, 1838 -- Militia Muster Day.\n\nProfessional baseball began in the United States around 1865, and the National League was founded in 1876 as the first true major league, quickly producing famous players such as Honus Wagner. Several other major leagues formed and failed, but the American League, established in 1901 as a major league and originating from the minor Western League (1893), did succeed. While the two leagues were rivals who actively fought for the best players, often disregarding one another's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes, a modicum of peace was established in 1903, and they began playing a World Series that year.\n\nCompared to modern times, games in the early part of the 20th century were lower scoring and pitchers were more successful. The "inside game", whose nature was to "scratch for runs", was played rather more violently and aggressively than it is today. Ty Cobb said of his era especially, "Baseball is something like a war!" This period, which has since become known as the "dead-ball era", ended in the 1920s with several rule changes that gave advantages to hitters and the rise of the legendary baseball player Babe Ruth, who showed the world what power hitting could produce and thus changed the nature of the game.\n\nDuring the first half of the 20th century, a "gentlemen's agreement" in the form of the baseball
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These two URL's will help you....\n\nYankees\nhttp://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/\n\nRed Sox\nhttp://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/\n\nClick on the year you want and from there you can easily click on the names one by one to see where they played the year prior.
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I'm from San Francisco.  I visited Fenway and fell in love.  I say:\n\n        "LET'S -  GO - RED - SOX !"
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Was played on christmas day
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A.J. Spaulding (of Spaulding sporting goods fame and also the first comissionare of baseball) wanted Baseball to be an American invented game. So in his book on the history of baseball he credits Abner Doubleday with inventing the game. Doubleday however should only be credited with the layout of the bases as we know them today.\n\nA few summers ago a old law was found in a small town in Mass. that predates the year Doubleday supposedly invented baseball. The law outlaws the playing of baseball at certain times of the day. So there was a form of baseball in the US before the base layout of Doubleday as we know it.\n\nIn Britain there was a game called baseball and other games called one old hat and two old hat that have similiarities to baseball and may be how the game was introduced to the US.\n\nThe game has under gone many changes since the start. With the mound moved back from 40 feet to 50 feet to 60.5 feet, the mound dropped from 16 inches to 10 inches, the pitch was initially underhand, the ball was smaller in diameter and so on. So no matter where the game was invented and when, it really is an American invention.
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Rock and Roll pt 1, if I'm not mistaken.  It's played almost everywhere before games.
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This question piqued my interest, but I was unable to find an answer.  You've probably found everything I did, but below are some related links.\n\n\nI did find this.  I'm not sure if it is up to date.  \n\nPacific Coast League Historical Society\nRichard Beverage, President\n420 Robinson Circle\nPlacentia, CA 92870\nEmail: rbeverage at aol.com \n\nSupposedly they meet 3 times a year.  \n\nIf you are on the West Coast, a good library might have access to any of several books about the history of the PCL.  There is also a relatively new history of baseball in California published by the Univ. of California which is in better bookstores, "The Golden Game."  It was also suggested that you miught be able to get info from the sports department of the San Francisco newspapers.
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I'm a fan of the oldies: Fenway and Yankee Stadium for sure.\n\nI still miss Tiger Stadium - but in many ways Comerica Park is a worthy successor.  (I'll admit, I'm partially saying that because I'm a girl and the bathroom lines are SO MUCH shorter at Comerica.)
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The Boston Patriots (as they were called back in the 60's).  The Red Sox were holding a World Series game at Fenway Park back on October 08, 1967 so the Chargers/Patriots game was moved to San Diego Stadium (Qualcomm Stadium)  Oh yeah, GO CHARGERS!!!  =)
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is it sweet Caroline???
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i know the song you are asking about but have no clue what the name is.\n\nyou can send an email to ask questions about music played at yankee stadium from this page: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nyy/help/faq.jsp#music
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Inside-the-park home run\nIn almost all cases nowadays, a home run involves hitting the ball over the outfield fence in fair territory. Very rarely, a batter can hit the ball in play and circle all the bases before the fielders can throw him out; this is called an inside-the-park home run, and typically requires that the batter be a quick runner, and that either the fielder misplay the ball in some way or that the ball is made difficult to play by caroming in unexpected ways, or by becoming difficult for a fielder to reach due to structural variances and peculiarities of different ballparks. If the misplay is labeled an error by the official scorer, however, the batter is not credited with a home run.\n\nIn baseball parlance, an inside-the-park home run is a play where a hitter scores a home run without hitting the ball out of play. Inside-the-park home runs are rare events, generally occurring only a handful of times during any given season. The play requires both a fast base runner and often some sort of fielding mishap by the defense, or a strange bounce in the outfield. If the fielder commits an error during the act, however, the play is not scored as a home run, but rather advancing on an error.\n\nAn inside-the-park grand slam is the same event but, like a grand slam, features the bases loaded for an inside-the-park home run. There have only been 40 inside-the-park grand slams in Major League Baseball since 1950 and only eight since 1990 (as of 2002). Honus Wagner had the most in MLB history with five.\n\nOf the 154,483 home runs hit from 1951 - 2000, 975 (about one in every 158) were inside the park. The percentage has dwindled over the years with the growing propensity of smaller parks.\n\nThe record for most inside-the-park home runs for a single season (12) was set by Sam Crawford in 1901. He is also the holder for most career inside-the-park home runs with 51. The career leader post-1950 is 13 by former Royals outfielder Willie Wilson.\n\nJimmy Sheckard completed a phenomenal feat in 1901, hitting inside-the-park grand slams in consecutive games on consecutive days with the Brooklyn Superbas (later the Brooklyn Dodgers). Sheckard is the only person in Major League Baseball history to do so.\n\nA rare event occurred on July 13, 1896, when Ed Delahanty of the Philadelphia Phillies hit two inside-the-park home runs (out of four home runs total) in one game against the Chicago Cubs. [1] Ed Konetchy did the same on August 5, 1912
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The First game under what would become the standard rules was played in 1849 at Elysian Fields in Brooklyn New York. The first Professional game was played in May 1871 between the Cleveland Forest City's and the Fort Wayne(Indiana) Kekiongas FT.Wayne won 2-0. The National League would be formed in 1876 and the American League in 1901. The First team to play for money was the Cincinnati Red Legs who were formed in 1869.\nAs to who had the first pro hit etc. the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York would have those answers.