Sharon Residents Hear How Boston Became One Baseball Team Town

Richard Johnson has read Boston Red Sox stories in 18 daily newspapers.

Tuesday night, the Sports Museum of New England curator visited a library, the one, for a different reason: to discuss his research on the ballclub and its 99-year home, Fenway Park.

The Red Sox were Boston's second baseball franchise -- the current Atlanta Braves were the other -- when they arrived in 1901, Johnson said during "How About Those Red Sox?" a children's event.

Sharon is reading Dennis Lehane's "The Given Day," which is set during World War I-era Boston.

The Red Sox early years were "as much a business story as it was a sports story," Johnson said.

The Sox "won the Battle of Boston before even one game had been played," he said.

The team built its first ballpark 80 yards away from the then-Beaneaters' home -- and set ticket prices at half their rivals', he said.

"It's like building a Honey Dew next to a Dunkin's, or a Burger King next to a McDonald's," Johnson said.

The Red Sox also "went after star players at a time" when other clubs "might have thought they were over the hill," he said.

Johnson and Glenn Stout co-wrote "Red Sox Century: The Definitive History of the World's Most Storied Franchise."

"We always agreed there had never been a definitive history of the club" that wasn't "old or out of date" or "opinionated," Johnson said.

Johnson's next book, about Fenway, is due out in November, he said.

The Red Sox also have hired him as a consultant for Fenway's 100th anniversary. The park opened April 20, 1912.

"One Book, One Town" continues at 7 p.m. Thursday with "The Immigrant Experience in Sharon."

The "One Book, One Town" committee is co-partnering with the Interfaith Action Young Leaders on the program, which will be held in the library's Cynthia B. Fox Community Room.