Fans coming to Fenway come to see a baseball game. But it’s obvious that there’s a lot more going on than just 9 innings of baseball. There are lots of things to see and hear, both while the ball is in play and when it’s not. You sit in your seat and watch the baseball action, but what you experience is an entire package of visual and auditory entertainment.
The entire package is created upstairs on Level 5 in what’s termed the Control Room. Other than John Henry’s office, perhaps, the Control Room is one of Fenway’s innermost sanctums, a mysterious space glimpsed through the glass alongside the radio and TV booths, peered at through binoculars by a few curious fans. What goes on in there?
A little history
In days of yore, say before 1976, there was no control room. The entertainment “package” was created by an organ, a small electric scoreboard control, a microphone, and two or three men to operate these devices. Plus, of course, the left-field scoreboard. In my early years as a Sox fan in the late 1960s, John Kiley provided all the music, and Sherm Feller provided the public address announcements and also operated the scoreboard lights. There were only two scoreboards, the large one on The Wall (it was not yet called the Green Monster) and another behind the bleachers, where the center of the New Balance scoreboard is today.
The 1975 season provided enough excitement to encourage the Red Sox to invest in electronic technology for the first time. A large board, 40 by 24 feet, was erected where the primary, largest videoboard is today, behind the bleachers in straightaway center. Making such a huge change to Fenway enraged some of the purists of the day, and even raised questions in Tom Yawkey’s mind, but fan reaction was very positive. And on April 13, 1976, that board was the first large videoboard to operate in the major leagues.
That device, called a “Marvelous Message Board” by its manufacturer, Stewart-Warner, was grayscale only, no color, but was the first to be able to show images as well as dot-matrix text. Instant replays became the first video shown at Fenway. Usually it just gave the lineup of the team at bat and the balls, strikes, outs, inning number, and score. But it provided entertainment by showing occasional unusual messages such as “DURING WARM WEATHER THIS SUMMER, THE WHITE SOX WILL WEAR SHORTS”.
Jim Healey, a tech-minded Boston College grad, was the man in charge of operating this board from the newly created “message booth”. It is unknown how many other people were involved in feeding it video and information, but 1976 began the trend toward more people and more equipment transforming the Fenway experience.
The Marvelous Message Board was replaced by a color board in 1988, which in turn was replaced in 2011 by the high-definition board you see today. Under the Henry ownership, many other video boards were installed throughout the park.
Meanwhile, music made its appearance in 1953 and evolved just as the scoreboards have. Tom Yawkey bought a Hammond X-66 organ and hired legendary organist John Kiley in 1953, who had been playing at Boston Garden for a decade by then. Kiley provided all the entertainment during my first years as a Red Sox fan beginning in 1963. His playing seemed the absolute perfect accompaniment to games, from rousing celebratory renditions of “Beer Barrel Polka” following a win, to the melancholy, brooding numbers during rain delays. Kiley, who is famous as the man who played for the Sox, Bruins, and Celtics, retired in 1988.
Successive organists have included Jim Kilroy from 1988 to 1994, Ray Totaro and Richard Giglio from 1994 to 2002, and Josh Kantor from 2003 to present. (The organists and organ music will warrant a separate blog post at a later date.) But the organists got company, as the 1990s brought recorded music into the mix. A trend throughout baseball caused several ballpark organs to be abandoned as music CDs seemed to be the coming trend. Thankfully, Fenway never completely converted to recorded sounds.
The “message booth” expanded as recorded music made its way into the Fenway experience. Amy Tobey selected the songs from 1998 to 2003, and she needed computer and sound equipment to store, organize, select, and play her picks. Megan Kaiser succeeded her from 2003 to 2007, and TJ Connelly became the full-time DJ in 2008, after playing a back-up role for a few years before that.
The other necessary element, the public address announcer, has changed the least. Since Jay McMaster became the first full-time PA announcer in 1958, the job description has stayed constant: announce batters and make other announcements and introductions relevant to the game or on-field activities. Two voices stand out in Fenway’s loudspeaker history: Sherm Feller’s from 1967 to 1993, and Carl Beane’s from 2003 to 2012. Others using the mic were Frank Fallon, 1953-1957; Fred Kusick, 1956-1957; Jay McMaster, 1958-1966; Leslie Sterling, 1994-1996; and the current rotating trio of Dick Flavin, Henry Mahegan, and Bob Lobel.
The PA announcer needs little equipment — just a good microphone and a pushbutton switch to enable the mic.
A tour of the Control Room
I never imagined I could visit the nerve center of Fenway Park, the Control Room, twelve years ago. At that time, having moved back to New England, I began sending in various notes (fan feedback) regarding observations and wishes for improvements. Nothing happened, but last December I finally met the two people I should have met years ago: Sarah McKenna, Vice President of Fan Services and Entertainment, and John Carter, Senior Director of Red Sox Productions. Specifically, John and his crew run the scoreboards, and many of my concerns were focused on the various scoreboards.
As a relationship developed, the Red Sox adopted some of my recommendations (as noted in my page on Changes in 2017), and lines of communication are open, even during games. As a result, I was invited to see where it all happens, that mysterious booth on Level 5.
Just off the main elevator on Level 5, the large double door entrance leads to the various important spaces that literally oversee the game. The press box, home and away radio booths, NESN and other TV booths, and the control room are arranged in a line. Also in that line is the Press Box Suite which may be purchased from the Premium Sales folks. If you want to see a game from almost the same position as the Control Room, there’s your chance. Other spaces on that level away from the field include overflow press rooms and the media dining room.
Once past Security in the entrance lobby, the Control Room is accessed through the first door on your right. Inside is a massive, breathtaking array of technology, and a dozen or more friendly Red Sox Productions managers and staffers. The room takes the form of a corridor directed toward the field. Dozens of video screens and other electronics line this corridor.
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| view from the rear |
Farthest from the field, there is a small work area where future video productions are created. The people there are not paying attention to the game at hand, but are working on various projects, for example assembling a new “blooper reel”, Legends compilation, or a video for a special occasion. In the rest of the room, everyone is working on the game being played.
The game in progress is basically packaged and presented by many people all working together, under the direction of a producer and one or two managers. The elements that have to seamlessly mesh with each other and the game itself are: game scoring, public address announcing, baseball information, music, baseball video replay, non-baseball live video, fan message and song lyric video, advertising video, and entertainment video.
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| The Producer at his amazing console |
Game scoring
The most critical element is game scoring — keeping everyone informed about balls, strikes, outs, hits, errors, runs. This function is shared with the four employees within the Green Monster, who put all those numbers in place manually. The manual scoreboard operators work on their own, but there is phone communication with the Control Room when necessary. The basic tallies are, of course, shown digitally on several small and large videoboards.
One of the five front seats in the room — down a narrow stairway to the very front, closest to the field — is that of the game scorer, who inputs data through a custom 20-button keypad or more conventionally into a computer. After every pitch, I saw Mike Sivo press a button on the keypad, usually ball, strike, or foul. Why a button for fouls? Because it adds 1 to the pitch count even if there are already two strikes. After, for example, a second-to-first groundout, he pressed OUT, then CLEAR COUNT, then clicked a “4-3” icon on a computer. This would increase outs by one, reset balls and strikes to zero, set up “Score That Play” on the New Balance scoreboard to read “4-3”, and add the groundout to that batter’s in-game history in order to display it the next time he came to bat. Unusual plays have to be entered manually. There was a “SAC FC E5” during my visit.
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| Every pitch requires one of the yellow-marked buttons to be pressed. |
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| Most common plays are at lower right. Others have to entered on keyboard. |
I tell you, there is nothing like pressing a button and seeing a ball or strike light up on the Monster! It was truly a fantasy come true, although Sherm Feller once let me light the lights AFTER a game had ended in the 1970s. No computers then, just good old metal toggle switches.
One would think that the technology in the scorekeeping electronics would allow for any conceivable play. But one play is impossible to display properly: a hit and error on the same play, which happens many times a month. It is impossible to illuminate the green “H” light and red “E” light at the same time! Hopefully a software patch can correct this for next year.
Sometimes the Control Room personnel don’t know what just happened on the field — either do we fans, because the action was not clear. On close plays, scoring is delayed until it’s obvious that an umpire review will not be made. On judgment calls (hit vs. error, passed ball vs. wild pitch) the room awaits the word of the Official Scorer, who sits at the far end of the press box. His decisions come into the Control Room just as they have for decades — by voice on an overhead speaker.
Public address announcing
The second oldest and most vital function is PA announcing, done by a man at the mike in the center of the lower front level of the control room. That man is one of three in rotation: Dick Flavin, for most day games; Henry Mahegan, for most night games; and Bob Lobel, for most Saturday games.
Dick, Henry, or Bob make the announcements during the pre-game festivities, give the starting lineups, and in occasional inning breaks make announcements about the 50-50 Raffle, the Hats Off to Heroes military salute, and other such occurrence.
It’s all business when the game is underway. They announce each batter, pinch hitters, pinch runners, relief pitchers, other substitutions, and that’s it. In years past, Sherm Feller used to announce some scoring decisions such as “Passed ball” or “Error third base”. That is not done anymore.
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| Dick Flavin at the mic; Mike Sivo to his right. Dick is pressing the switch while announcing. |
Baseball information
There is much baseball information handled besides the scoring. This includes standard statistics for every pitcher and player, but also some pretty specific information. When a batter is at bat for the second time, the main videoboard gives a fact about the player’s past accomplishments or background; an assistant in the Control Room has produced some tidbit for each player. The right-hand section of the Bank of America board has precise situational information about each batter, such as his performance in late innings, average with runners in scoring position, success against the current pitcher. This data is chosen by an assistant in the lower front row of the Control Room from a computer that crunches all kinds of statistics.
The right field terrace videoboard often joins the party, showing the batter’s hit spreads over different parts of the field. At other times, it mimics basic information such as what the batter has done so far in the game. On the day I visited, assistant Dominique Delprete controlled this board.
And sometimes even the lineup on the New Balance board is pre-empted by more information… about runners’ stolen base success or other notable statistics.
Music
Music production is shared between two men: “TJ the DJ” Connelly in the Control Room and organist Josh Kantor in the State Street Pavilion Club. These two maestros get together a couple of hours before the game and coordinate who’s going to play when. They have a friendly respect for each other and don’t compete for “air time”. And each has a healthy crowd of fan followers who make suggestions and give compliments on Twitter.
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| TJ Connelly, left, controls all pre-recorded music. |
TJ has a library at hand of many thousands of songs. Any can be cued up at a moment’s notice. They range from Sweet Caroline to little snippets of miscellaneous songs played during innings. These “situational” song segments are played after base hits, during mound visits, and such; a computer screen has many of them on a grid and TJ can click on one to make it play instantly. Longer songs are played during umpire reviews and pitching changes.
By the way, the “horn” sound heard when the Sox score is a little piece of an electronic song by Avancada called “Go!”, and it was brought to the attention of TJ by Dustin Pedroia!
TJ also plays the “walk-up” music specifically requested by each Red Sox batter. This is slightly complicated when some batters specify several songs and a specific order for successive at-bats, but one click does it. TJ’s left hand is on a couple of faders to cut off the sound when the batter approaches the plate.
Meanwhile, one level down in the Pavilion Club, at the far left (third-base) side, Josh Kantor awaits his next cue. He plays his Yamaha organ after the home half of two or three innings, and fills those two minutes completely. It is at those times that Fenway Park sounds the most traditional, when, for example, he plays “When You’re Smiling” and other old standards. But Josh often plays non-traditional music requested by fans. For example, songs by the Mountain Goats were played quite a bit this year by request.
Josh has an amazing repertoire of a few hundred songs and doesn’t have to shuffle through sheet music to prepare — it’s all in his head. And if you request something new, all he has to do is hear it a couple of times and then he can play it. His Twitter followers love it!
He occasionally plays situational bits of songs for mound visits or whatever, and at other times before, during, and after games. For us ballpark organ music fans, the best time to fully appreciate Josh is in his half hour prelude, starting 90 minutes before game time. Come early, take a seat, and bask in the traditional Fenway sound. John Kiley left large shoes to fill, but Josh fills them admirably.
Baseball video replay
Red Sox Productions operates six cameras of which three are fixed but manned, two are fixed and controlled from the Control Room, and one is a wireless roving camera. The manned cameras give us footage to show on instant replays. The Red Sox cameras are not the same as those of NESN, any other TV feed, or the MLB cameras that are used for umpire-reviewed challenges. The MLB crew in New York does not have access to the Red Sox camera footage.
Non-baseball live video
One of the remotely controlled cameras is always pointed toward the “right-field terrace board” where the Cumberland Farms sign was before 2017. That’s because it is the only videoboard not easily seen through the Control Room windows, and it’s good to make sure it is displaying what it should. The roving camera operator shows us the legendary player in the Legends Suite, marriage proposals, pre-game festivities, crowd shots, and other special subjects. Several cameras are used in the 6th inning “dance off” to find fans in several areas at once.
All the Red Sox camera views appear in miniature in the Control Room and can be selected to appear on numerous other monitors as required, and then sent to the centerfield videoboard (and others). There is also a screen that monitors all the NESN cameras as they feed into the NESN truck parked outside.
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| Various camera feeds. NESN cams are at upper right; image just above bottom right is fixed view of Terrace videoboard. |
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| Various video from inside and outside the Park. Upper right has two replay monitors. |
Fan message and song lyric video
Messages appearing on the New Balance videoboard, such as “The Red Sox welcome (name) to Fenway Park” come to the Control Room from the office of Red Sox Foundation. Surprisingly, they are not delivered electronically, but the old fashioned way — on sheets of paper. On the day I visited, Julia Seigel typed these into a computer, and a screen showed exactly how they’d look on the videoboard. Song lyrics are also handled at this desk, since they appear on the same scoreboard. Marriage proposals appear on the main centerfield board.
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| Fan messages are typed onto this screen. |
Advertisement video
Advertisements appear on the various videoboards at least 99% of the time. The sides of the main centerfield board and the fascia boards on the right and left sides show numerous ads throughout the game, especially between innings. All those have to be coordinated and sent to the correct screens.
Entertainment video
Finally, there are various video entertainment pieces that appear throughout the game on the main centerfield board. Examples are the Blooper Reel, the Legends player reel, the “Priceless Moments” clip, the “Slo-mo smash” clip, and the JetBlue trivia question. These are created beforehand and fed to the videoboard when required.
