|
A year-round tour guide at Fenway Park, Ed Carpenter hits fastballs with his facts and home runs with his humor. Not to mention the curves and spins.
Whether he's recalling the longest measurable home run ever hit in the ballpark (about 502 feet, Ted Williams, June 9, 1946), happily recalling a Yankee loss or describing one of the most popular ballpark jobs (a waiting list of several hundred to be a scoreboard operator), he obviously loves what he is doing.
"He's a natural -- he has such a memory for detail and you can tell he's really lived this game," Diane Smith, a school curriculum director from Oregon, said on a recent tour with her husband, Fred. "That's what makes him so charming."
Last July, Carpenter, 64, who lives in Stoughton, retired after a 35-year career in college sports information and public relations. For 29 years, he'd handled athletic public relations at Boston University. While ready to leave the constant nighttime and weekend hours behind, he still needed to stay busy and "have a purpose."
A lifelong Red Sox fan, he's found his dream retirement job. "I have Fenway Park as my office and I share my love of the Red Sox with people from all over the world every day," he says. "Whether sixth-graders or seniors, when I get the feeling that they have the same type of passion and feel as happy as I do to be there -- I can't imagine anything better."
When Carpenter was
6 and living in Brookline, his father took him to a Red Sox night game in 1949. "I can still see it -- we walked up the ramp behind home plate and came out at the top and the lights were on and everything was green and lush, like a
huge emerald. I thought, 'Wow!'
"
On the recent tour, as he led the way to the oldest seats in the ballpark -- 6,000 grandstand seats built in 1934 -- he told his tour, "Just think -- your great grandfather might have sat in these seats."
Actually, that wasn't far off the mark for Chris Stephens, who graduated from Marshfield High School in 1962, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, and was back in town for a family visit.
"I came to my first game here when I was
5 -- a neighbor brought a bunch of kids and we sat right over there," Stephens said, pointing to the upper right
section behind first base. "My father watched games here. My grandfather watched games here. I brought my son to games here." He looked around with satisfaction.
In the summer, there can be
as many as
25 tour guides -- college students, retirees, teachers -- leading tourists schoolchildren, business people, groups of seniors and others around the oldest major league ballpark. But in the winter, Carpenter has done tours for one.
From the moment he turns on his portable mike, Carpenter is effusive. "You'll feel young again as soon as we get over to the park," he tells one senior. "Now we'll head over to the Green Monster, you fabulous people."
The tours last about an hour and it's not unusual for people to come directly from, or on their way to, the airport, bus or train stations, suitcases in tow.
After graduating from Brookline High School in 1961, Carpenter received his degree in journalism from Penn State in 1965, served in the Air Force for four years, worked a year as sports writer for the New Haven Register and was sports information director at the University of Delaware for six years. In 1977, after one year as a corporate speech writer, he jumped at the chance to return to sports public relations at Boston University.
When he retired a year ago, he and his wife, Suzy, who handles cookbooks for the New England Mobile Book Fair, had recently sold their home in Needham and moved
into a condo in Stoughton. Married 26 years, they have five grown children -- three by his first marriage and two by her first marriage -- and four grandchildren.
Retirement seems a misnomer; he works for the Red Sox four and a half days a week, does public relations for The Weymouth Club and the Canton Club and is director of marketing for the College Sports Information Directors of America.
"I couldn't be happier," he says.
Daily tours leave from the Souvenir Store on Yawkey Way hourly
from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be no tours July 26-29.
The last tour on a game day departs 31/2 hours before game time and is an abbreviated tour.
Advance ticket sales are not available. Tours cost $12 for adults, $11 for seniors (60 and older) and $10 for children 2-14 and for military and active reserve with valid ID.
For more information, call 617-226-6666, go to redsox.com/tours or e-mail tours@redsox.com. |
Views:
29255
23
ratings |
