It’s the seventh inning stretch in Chicago at Wrigley Field. Chicago Cubs fans stand as one and in one voice sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It’s the middle of the eighth in Boston at Fenway Park. Red Sox fans are on their feet. Sweet Caroline in one voice lets you know the Sox are home.
These two baseball parks are coming together in central Maine. They share similar histories, the first being that they are the first and second oldest ballparks in the majors. Fenway Park was built in 1912 and Wrigley Park in 1914; both have unique outfields. The brick outfield wall at Wrigley is low and covered with Boston ivy and the outfield wall at Fenway is the Monster Wall, built high to shield games from folks drinking and eating at bars and restaurants across the street and watching without paying. Both share hand-placed score cards on the score board, but perhaps the most memorable sharing is that of Babe Ruth who played for the Red Sox and the Yankees. Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees for $125,000. Ruth’s fame and Boston’s shame for trading him to the Yankees continues to this day. The Cubs dearly remember game 3 of the 1932 World Series when Babe allegedly pointed to a bleacher location and hit the next pitch there for a homer. We know the hit was true but the assigned location… Was it fact? Is it legend?
Now, both team ball parks will be on the way to fields of dreams legends for children in Waterville, Maine, 1160 miles east of Wrigley Field and 186 miles north of Fenway Park. Wrigley Field will join the two-thirds replica of Fenway Park in place for several years at a children’s summer camp, a short distance from Waterville but Wrigley Field, to be known as Purnell Wrigley Field, will be in Waterville. Most impressive, however, is that they will be the ONLY two licensed replicated stadiums in the country where their spirit will be alive with children playing baseball with the hopes of perhaps one day becoming a legend.
