Free Fenway 1912 by Glenn Stout Page A

churches in and around Boston, as well as many buildings on the campuses of the Catholic universities Boston College and Holy Cross in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts. A pious man, Logue attended Mass every day and died in a church, succumbing to a heart attack and passing away in the arms of his son while working on the scaffolding of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Dedham, Massachusetts.
    He may well have been selected to serve as the general contractor for Fenway Park owing to his close relationship with O'Connell—the archdiocese owned a sizable property almost adjacent to Fenway Park on Ipswich Street, and it was both good policy and good politics in Boston to stay on good terms with the Church. Although Sunday baseball was banned, the ball club lusted after these lucrative dates and at some point in the future would need the blessing of the archdiocese if the restriction was ever to be lifted. It just made sense to keep the Church happy.
    Logue and James McLaughlin got on well with each other, Logue providing the practical solutions to the structural and aesthetic demands of McLaughlin's design, while McLaughlin ensured that Taylor's wishes were reflected in the final product. Neither man was either hot-tempered or impatient, and from a construction standpoint Fenway Park was not overly challenging. It was like working on any other building.
NEW HOME OF THE RED SOX; PLAN IDEAL IN EQUIPMENT AND LOCATION
Baseball Park Will Contain 365,308 Square Feet Of Land With Stands Of The Most Approved Type
    As the days grew shorter in October McLaughlin spent less and less time in his office, at least during daytime hours. Most of his time was spent at the ballpark overseeing his project, huddled with engineers and foremen around a potbellied stove to stave off the seasonal chill in one of two cramped construction shanties built in foul territory between the fenced-off infield and the first-base grandstand.
    Boston's fans and players also prepared to spend the winter huddled around the stove, for as soon as the players made a final visit to John I. Taylor to pay their respects and pick up their final paychecks, the "Hot Stove League" began in earnest. The new ownership and a new ballpark were only the first changes that would take place before the Red Sox took the field to open the 1912 season.
    As soon as they collected their paychecks, most Red Sox players scattered. Not a single player called Boston home in the off-season. For some, like Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper, it took nearly a week to travel to their homes on the West Coast.
    The last two players to leave Boston were Bill Carrigan and Tris Speaker. They had been left behind at Put's to convalesce. Carrigan's broken leg was still in a cast—he had not left the hotel in weeks—and Speaker was still laid up by the pitch he took off his lower leg in the season finale. It was awkward for the two men, who were forced by circumstances to share an apartment for about a week, but in the long run it may have been for the best. Without the other Masons and KCs to egg them on, the enmity between the two took too much energy to sustain, and with each man hobbled, they were dependent on one another. Carrigan finally had his cast changed on October 10 and was allowed to begin to move about on crutches, but it would be another three weeks until doctors would allow him to travel to his home in Lewiston, Maine. Speaker, meanwhile, recovered rapidly and was looking forward to the World's Series. The
Globe
had signed him up to ghostwrite a column on the series. In truth, that meant he had to do little more than watch the Series and nod in agreement with whatever the
Globe
man wrote under his name, but it was easy money.
    He was not the only Boston player for whom the postseason meant opportunity. With a week between the end of the regular season for the Athletics and the start of the World's Series, the American League champion Athletics wanted to stay sharp. Manager Connie Mack asked Jimmy