"Baseball is not a matter of life and death, but the Red Sox are." Many baseball fans from all around New England and all over the United States agree with Mike Barnacle on this statement. The Boston Red Sox are one of the most unique teams in Major League Baseball and they have a long and rich history.
"As hard as it may be for their partisans to believe today, there was indeed a time when the Boston Red Sox did not exist. This flaw in the national culture was corrected in 1901" said Dan Honig. On January 28th, 1901, Byron Johnson decided to start a team in Boston to be part of his American Baseball League. This team, the Boston Americans, eventually became the Boston Red Sox. They played on a field on Huntington Avenue. The big star player of the team at that time was the great Denton True "Cy" Young, more commonly known as "Cy," the big right hander spent nearly 20 years in the big leagues and set the pitching standard for all of baseball to follow. He was the only pitcher in baseball's first 100 years to win 500 games, including three no-hit shutouts and a perfect game on May 5, 1904. .
On May 7th, 1903, one of the oldest rivalries in all of sports was started. It was the first time that the Boston team faced a team from New York, the Highlanders, who were eventually the Yankees. Boston won the game 3-0. The tone was set. No New York - Boston game would ever be meaningless, despite what the standings sometimes said. The Boston Americans appeared in the first World Series in 1903. They beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in seven games. .
A man named John I. Taylor bought the Boston Americans in 1904 for $145,000. He is the man who not only gave the team the name Red Sox, but he also gave them their home, Fenway Park. The team's away uniforms were gray uniforms with red and pale blue stockings and their home uniforms were white with bright red stockings, so Taylor named them the Red Sox. Club officials were concerned that the new stockings would be too garish.
