Opening Day at Fenway draws a crowd of big-name fans
There'll be some bleak days at the old ballpark this season, but yesterday sure wasn't one of them. Even from our spot in the cheap seats -- or what should be cheap seats -- friendly Fenway never looked so fine. And soaking up the spectacle were the usual suspects, a bunch of bigshots Blackberrying their less fortunate buddies. (''Wish you were here. . . . Ha, ha, ha.") Pre-game parties were the order of Opening Day, and many of the bars surrounding the stadium were filled with fans hours before the first pitch.
The Sox themselves hosted a little something, and it drew a mess of muckety-mucks, including designer Joseph Abboud, party planners Bryan Rafanelli and Mark Walsh, nightclub king Patrick Lyons, Sox COO Mike Dee, and sports marketing whiz Soosie Lazenby. Huddled in the same room were Harvard prof Alan Dershowitz, historian Dick Goodwin, and former Maine Senator George Mitchell, who's just been tapped to tackle Major League Baseball's steroids scandal. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy was at the party, as was David D'Alessandro, the former John Hancock honcho. (We wanted to say hi, but Phoenix publisher Stephen Mindich was bending his ear.) Urban League president Darnell Williams had an animated chat with developer Don Chiofaro, while standing nearby we saw Ron Druker, former Harvard Business School prof Jim Cash, and hotelier Robin Brown, who was flamboyantly attired as usual.
Roaming the suite seats upstairs, we spied former Bruin Ray Bourque, Curt Schilling's spouse, Shonda, Sox owner John Henry, and power couple Jack and Suzy Welch. Biding his time in the Budweiser box was none other than Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV, who earlier drained a draft with Boston barkeeps Bill Fairweather of the Greatest Bar and Jimmy Rooney, owner of the Baseball Tavern. Ex-TD Banknorth Garden exec Rich Kreswick was in the house, as were former
Celtics owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca and director of basketball operations Danny Ainge enjoyed the Sox's first home win of the season. Making a rare in-state appearance, Governor Mitt Romney could be seen calmly cheering from his seats along the third-base line. (Yes, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and AG Tom Reilly also managed to score tickets.) We also ran into hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely, Dropkick Murphys main man Ken Casey, Pats players Doug Flutie, Troy Brown, Lonnie Paxton, and Dan Koppen, baseball's last Triple Crown winner, Carl Yastrzemski, should-be Hall of Famer Jim Rice, and former Sox slugger Sam Horn.
At some point we got hungry, so we strolled outside to see the Sausage Guy, a.k.a. David Littlefield, who spent the day slinging the other white meat while everyone else watched the game. A fixture at Fenway, Littlefield said Opening Day is always a blast. ''If you had to order it, you couldn't get a better day than today," he said, backdropped by a blue, cloudless sky. Littlefield sets up shop in the shadow of the Green Monster on Lansdowne Street, which he acknowledged can be hazardous to his health when Manny starts pounding those long home runs. ''It's not so bad during the game because people cheer to give you a head's up," he said, ''but during batting practice you can get killed." With that, the Sausage Man got back to work. ''I'll be kind of glad when the day's over," he said with a sigh.
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