It’s not easy to get to from Rhode Island or most anywhere else for that matter. 

A compact structure with five brick and concrete facades rises up from asphalt surroundings in the heart of the city. Built in the Fenway section of Boston in 1912, at a time when trollies, bicycles and of course two feet were the primary modes of transportation in this major metropolitan area, there is, to any modern day observer, a near total absence of parking lots surrounding it. 

Narrow two-lane streets, and what by all accounts are 19th century buildings, make up the surrounding neighborhood. It’s hard to believe this squat venue plays host to 81 major league baseball games a year for the storied Boston Red Sox.

But it does, and baseball fans in New England gladly navigate intercity traffic and spotty access to parking as part of annual pilgrimages to catch games at Fenway Park. 

On my recent pilgrimage to this baseball Mecca, I sat next to a cheerful woman watching the game with an older gentleman. 

It was scheduled as an early Sunday afternoon game in mid-September. However, the start time of the game was moved from 1:30 until 5:00 pm due to a persistent summer rain that blanketed the area for most of the day. 

Despite the inclement weather, the woman next to me was in shorts and sneakers, a light windbreaker the only protection from the stubborn afternoon mist. I couldn’t help but notice her well manicured fingernails adorned with shiny red nail polish.

“Oh I drove up from central Connecticut this morning to pick-up my Dad and take him to the game,” she said when I struck up a conversation, “I make sure we come to at least one game a year. The drive isn’t too bad, about three hours.” 

At that moment, the bottom of the second inning to be exact, the sweet sound of a wooden bat connecting with a hard, leather bound, round ball, woke up the crowd. Some 35,000 thousand people, sitting in hard plastic seats, a light gray mist hanging just above the stadium, rose as one cheering as they watched the flight of the baseball sail majestically over the storied green monster — a 37 foot high wall delineating left field, built to compensate for the ballpark’s deficiency of an abnormally short home run distance — and out on to Lansdowne Street.

A smile came across her father’s face as he stood and clapped. A tall gentlemanly figure with the requisite Red Sox cap, I’d put him in his late 70’s. The change in the smile on his face said it all once his daughter hugged him while the raucous crowd around us celebrated the home run. I’m quite sure memories of prior pilgrimages to Fenway with his little girl flooded back. 

The Sox won the game 4-1. 

As I left the stadium with my old friend in tow, I couldn’t help but think just how special this year’s jaunt to Fenway Park turned out, having sat next to the cheerful woman with the bright red fingernail polish from Connecticut who takes her elderly dad to catch a game at Fenway once a year.