“Programs, get cha programs heah”…..

A happy Friday to you all. Tonight the Sox will try once again to get above the .500 mark for the first time this season. They are playing well and even Bobby Valentine is earning praise from the warm and fuzzy Boston media. For not only has he held his team together with scotch tape and glue as player after player falls by the wayside, the Sox have won 10 out of their last 13.

First Edition of the Red Sox 2012 program.

As they begin a stint which will have them at Fenway for 13 of their next 16 games I thought I would take a trip down memory lane. So jump on board.

I am a memorabilia collector and some of my favorite items are Red Sox programs. I especially like them if they are scored for, to me, that brings the game to life.

The 1968 program is a particular favorite for it proclaims the glory of the 1967 American League Champs.

The fact that this cover is written on would blemish it for most collectors, but not me, it would have me scrambling to figure out which game this person may have seen. And that is a whole other story in itself.

This 1951 program marked the 50th anniversary of the American League.

I love this Fenway Park program from 1951 because I love all those logos. The Athletics were still at their first stop and Philadelphia, the Browns were still two years removed from moving from St. Louis to Baltimore and the original Senators (Nationals) still had a decade left in the Nations Capital. These are the original eight teams which formed the American League in 1901.

This relic has the special attraction of an autographed front. Who of us who lived it can forget Ned Martin’s call, “looped towards shortstop, Petrocelli’s back he’s got it the RED SOX WIN….There’s pandamonium on the field, listen!

The 2012 edition of the Boston Red Sox marks the 53rd rendition of the Fenway Park inhabitants I have followed. With all the joy, elation, success and glory that the teams of the past decade have brought me, the 1967 will always be my all time favorite Red Sox team. And that’s also another story for another day!

This 1959 program was sold at Fenway Park, the year I made my first trip to see the Sox with Dad.

The specifics of that first game have left me, however my first breathtaking view of that field will be with me always!

1961 marked the appearance of Carl Michael Yastrzemski who replaced Ted Williams in left field.

Yaz would say many times that replacing Ted brought more pressure than anything he experienced in his entire career.

My first yearbook came in 1961 and featured that up and coming star by the name of Yastrzemski.

The yearbook is another piece of memorabilia which I am partial to, but once again another story for another time. Lord do I love this!

And so it is on this day in Fenway Park history, May 25, 2012.

About fenwaypark100

Hello and welcome, my name is Raymond Sinibaldi. A retired history teacher, after 26 years in the classroom, a baseball fan for three score and five, I have authored 13 books. Eight about baseball and her glorious history; most recently Yankees in the Hall of Fame and Dodgers in the Hall of Fame. An aficionado of the Kennedy Administration, I have written four books in that realm and also co-authored a book of motivational stories for coaches. The first, The Babe in Red Stockings which was co-authored with Kerry Keene and David Hickey and released in 1997. It is a chronicle of Babe's days with the Red Sox. We also penned a screenplay about Babe's Red Sox days so if any of you are Hollywood inclined or would like to represent us in forwarding that effort feel free to contact me. In 2012 we three amigos published Images of Fenway Park in honor of the 100th birthday of Fenway Park. That led to the creation of this blog. The following year, 2013 came my first solo venture, Spring Training in Bradenton and Sarasota. This is a pictorial history of spring training in those two Florida cities. The spring of 2014 brought forth the 1967 Red Sox, The Impossible Dream Season. The title speaks for itself, and it also is a pictorial history. Many of the photos in this book were never published before. The spring of 2015 brought 1975 Red Sox, American League Champions. Another pictorial effort, this will be about the Red Sox championship season of 1975 and the World Series that restored baseball in America. The spring of 2016 brought 61 Motivational Stories for Every Coach of Every Sport. My first JFK effort was in 2017 with John F Kennedy in New England, which was followed by JFK From Florida to the Moon (2019) and JFK At Rest in Arlington (2020). Jackie's Newport came about in 2019 and in 2023 came both Yankees in the Hall of Fame and Dodgers in the Hall of Fame. I was fortunate enough to consult with sculptor Franc Talarico on the “Jimmy Fund” statue of Ted Williams which stands outside both Fenway Park and Jet Blue Park Fenway South, in Fort Myers Florida. That story is contained in the near 300 posts which are contained herein. Throughout the years this blog has morphed from an exclusive Red Sox focus, to a broader baseball perspective to a blog about life, with baseball a large portion of it. This year, 2024, I have reactivated this blog which lay dormant for quite some time. Welcome aboard, pass the word and feel free to contact me about anything you read or ideas you may have for a topic. Email me at fenwaypark100@gmail.com.

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