Fenway Park

Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912 — the same week the Titanic sank — and remains the oldest active park in Major League Baseball, a distinction it will carry for the foreseeable future. Its defining feature is the Green Monster: a 37-foot-2-inch left field wall that turns routine fly balls into doubles and makes left field defense a unique skill set learned over careers. The wall was painted green in 1947; before that it carried advertisements. A manual scoreboard has operated inside the Green Monster since 1934, the last of its kind in the major leagues.

The park’s intimacy — just 60 feet from the backstop to home plate, among the shortest distances in baseball — and its cramped upper deck create an atmosphere of intensity that larger modern stadiums rarely replicate. The park underwent major renovations beginning in 2002 under then-owner John Henry, adding seats atop the Green Monster and restoring the historic structure, after a period in which previous ownership had repeatedly considered demolishing and replacing it.