Painting the Corners Again by Weintraub Bob;

Author:Weintraub, Bob;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

A CORNER FOR LOVE

“One percent of ballplayers are leaders of men. The other ninety-nine percent are followers of women.”

—John McGraw

LOOKING BACK, PAULA McDonough realized that the biggest decision of her life began taking shape on a Sunday afternoon in July when she was six years old and held tightly to her father’s hand as he led her up the short ramp to the grandstand on the third base side of the field. That’s when she got her first look at the open expanse of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. She thought of it often in later years, especially while hiking the mountain trails around the University of Vermont with Pete. The endless variations of green in the trees and shrubs along the path reminded her of how the lush Fenway grass, glittering in the sunshine, crept close to the high outfield wall, and of the “Green Monster,” more subdued in color, that stretched from the left field foul line to the center field bleachers. And she recalled how the color of the playing field and the surrounding perimeters of the park were complemented by thousands and thousands of semi-gloss green seats.

She had grown up in West Roxbury, the younger daughter of a construction worker and a nurse, who worked at whichever hospital would limit her schedule to the six hours a day her children were in school. Maureen, her older sister, was born with music in her soul, and never even flirted with the idea of participating in sports. Paul and Joan McDonough knew ahead of time that their second child would have to be their last. The immediate disappointment of not having a son—”He’ll be a junior, of course,” Paul had said, and his wife agreed—gave rise to the name with which Paula was christened. It also guaranteed her father’s determination to see her develop whatever athletic ability she had, along with a love for baseball, the only game that mattered to him.

When Paula was fourteen, her father bought season tickets for all the Red Sox home games played on Saturday and Sunday, and renewed them each year. He had a special fondness for sitting almost up against the left field wall, in the last two seats of the second row of the grandstand. Only a foot away from the yellow foul pole, he could see every inch of Fenway Park from that corner. He loved being able to look down and offer his encouragement to the Sox left fielder.

They had seen Ted Williams play out the string in Boston, retiring at the end of the 1960 season. Paula would always remember the home run that he hit in the last at bat of his career on that dreary September afternoon. Her father had picked her up at school to join the meager crowd that bade “The Kid” adieu. They watched Carl Yastrzemski, his successor, mature as a player during the sixties. Yaz’s teams usually got off to a fast start, but had the local sportswriters penning the inevitable “Wait ’til next year” by the middle of July.

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