This was the original home of the Boston Red Sox from 1901 through 1911. The street in the lower left is Huntington Avenue.
The original field is now part of the quad at Northeastern University. When I first found this photo I thought the building beyond the left-field wall was Symphony Hall. But, no. It was the old Boston Opera House, which was knocked down in the 1950s when the Boston Redevelopment Authority was in full tear-down-everything-old mode. Northeastern University’s Speare Hall is on that site today.
There was a group of fans called the Royal Rooters formed for the 1903 World Series who sang a song called “Tessie” to cheer on the local nine. There’s a line in the song, “...up from from 3rd base to Huntington, we sang another victory song…” which would be the Rooters charging from 3rd base (in the photo below) to where the Dr. Swett’s Root Beer sign is in the first photo above. The song was re-created in the 90s by the Dropkick Murphys. These days it is played at Fenway Park – immediately following “Dirty Water” – after every Red Sox win. Today there’s a private bar and dining venue at Fenway Park called the Royal Rooters Club, named after these folks.
Cy Young pitched for the Red Sox for the first 8 years of their existence. His real name was Denton True Young and the nickname Cy referred to his amazing fastball which was described as being like a cyclone. 
There is a statue of Cy Young where the original mound was. He was the starting pitcher for Boston in the very first World Series game.
This granite marker indicates where home plate was and includes the names of all the starting players in Game 1 of the 1903 World Series.
The walkway from the Cy Young statue to the home plate granite marker is called World Series Way.
When the American League debuted in 1901 the Boston team decided they could draw fans away from the National League Boston Braves by charging half as much for tickets. It worked. In 1900, the last year of NL-only baseball in Boston, the Braves drew 2,767 fans. In the AL inaugural year of 1901 the Braves attendance dropped to 2,093 and the Red Sox drew more than twice that: 4,195 fans.
Boston won that frst World Series in 1903. They won the American League pennant again in 1904, but the New York Giants, winners of the National League pennant, refused to play Boston in the “World’s Series.” They were mad that this upstart American League team had won the first series and did not want to risk a repeat, so the 1904 series was canceled (the Red Sox should get credit for winning it by forfeit). Those New York Giants would eventually face the Red Sox in the 1912 World Series, which the Red Sox won in 7 games.
Boston, a charter team in the American League in 1901, is one of only four still playing in the original city. The original eight were Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Washington. In 1902 the original Milwaukee Brewers moved to St. Louis and became the Browns…until 1954 when they moved again to Baltimore and became the Orioles of today. In 1903 original Orioles moved to New York and became the Highlanders. About 10 years later they were renamed the Yankees. In 1955 the Philadelphia A’s moved to Kansas City, then in 1968 moved again to Oakland. In 1961 the original Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis and became the Twins.
The Boston AL team initially had no fixed nickname. Newspaper reporters often referred to them as the Boston Americans. They also referred to the Boston Braves as the Boston Nationals, just to distinguish the league each team played in. The National League had been around since 1876 and the American League was a newbie in 1901. This is why even today some writers still refer to the National League as the “senior circuit.”
In 1907 the lack of an official name problem was solved. By my Great Uncle, Peter Kelley. He was my grandfather Jim Kelley‘s older brother. I stumbled across this on Ancestry.com. Peter was a well-known sportswriter in Boston, reporting for the Boston Journal, Boston Post and Boston Globe. He was also Traveling Secretary for the Boston Braves and later the Business Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. On December 7th Peter had a meeting with Fred Tenney, GM of the Braves. Fred told Peter that for 1908 he was changing the color of the Braves uniform socks from red to blue. He was concerned about red dye infection, which used to be a thing. The next day, December 8th, Peter Kelley met with John Taylor, owner of the Boston American League team – and the Boston Globe – and told him about the Braves upcoming sock change. Peter said to Taylor, “You should do an homage to the original 1871 Boston MLB team – the Red Stockings – and call them the Red Sox.” Taylor loved the idea and announced that afternoon the team would be called the Red Sox. This is substanitated by numerous national newspaper articles, including Peter Kelley’s 1944 obituary in the Boston Globe. When the team officially adopted the name Red Sox in 1907 Cy Young was still on the team and they were still playing here.
This is the Boston Globe obit on Peter Kelley. The headline has the wrong year. It was in 1907, not 1917. In the world of newspapers the headline is written by the Headline Department, not the columnist. But the unnamed columnist (no by-line on the article) made a mistake as well. I can find no reference whatsoever that the team was called the Speedboys. Because the team had no nickname the writer probably decided to make one up. This obit was published almost 40 years later and the writer probably figured that nobody would know.
I remember watching the All-Star game with my grandfather in the 50s ad he told me he was rooting for the National League. I couldn’t understand that, because we were an American League city. We were Red Sox fans. Years later I figured it out. He was born in 1881 and grew up rooting for the Boston Braves (or the Boston Beaneaters as they were known when he was a kid) because the Red Sox didn’t even show up until he was 20 years old. By the time the Braves blew town he was already a grandfather three times over. But toward the end he switched his allegiance to the Sox.
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