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Ten Years Boston Strong: the Story Behind the Iconic 2013 Fenway Park Ceremony

April 20, 2023 - International League (IL)
Worcester Red Sox News Release


According to Worcester Red Sox President Dr. Charles Steinberg, April 20 is a special date in Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park history.

The first game ever played at the historic ballpark was on April 20, 1912. Boston's mayor at the time, John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald-who happened to be President John F. Kennedy's grandfather-threw out the first-ever Ceremonial First Pitch. Fast forward to 2012, and Fenway Park is celebrating its 100th anniversary on April 20 with the first pitch thrown by none other than President Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, the inspiration behind "Sweet Caroline," the Neil Diamond classic that now serves as Boston's sports anthem.

The next year, in 2013, Fenway was approaching its 101st birthday when the ballpark hosted its annual Patriots' Day game on April 15. The game went into extra innings and ended with a walk-off win for the Red Sox. Steinberg said that "more than 1,000 kids" ran the bases after the game, keeping the crowd at Fenway for longer than usual.

It was when the Fenway Park staff was walking back to the offices that the news broke: There had been a deadly terrorist attack near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The Red Sox had already boarded their buses and made it to Boston Logan Airport in time to fly to Cleveland for their upcoming series, but according to Steinberg, the team "felt one with Boston." It was on the journey to Cleveland that Boston's third baseman Will Middlebrooks sent a tweet ending with "#BostonStrong." The phrase became a powerful statement for the city that had been through such tragedy.

The next day, on April 16, 2013, Steinberg met with Red Sox department heads to discuss how the organization was going to help those who were affected. He said current WooSox Principal Owner and Chairman Larry Lucchino (president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox at the time) left the meeting to take a phone call with former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who said the entire city would put its charitable efforts together in what would be called One Fund Boston.

According to the Harvard Business Review, One Fund Boston distributed nearly $61 million to the survivors and families of the victims 75 days after the Boston Marathon Bombings.

While Lucchino took his phone call, Steinberg said he started to draw on a post-it note. He doodled a Boston "B," imagining it as a logo in red with the word "strong" in white on a sea of blue. According to Steinberg, it can take up to six months for Major League Baseball to approve a logo, but Sam Kennedy, the current president and CEO of the Red Sox, was "a hero that day."

"Sam then embarked on an amazing expediting process in which he turned six months of work from Major League Baseball into four hours to get the approval for a 'Be Strong' logo to be introduced," Steinberg said. "By getting it done in four hours, our friends and colleagues across the street at the souvenir store were able to start manufacturing hats and shirts whose funds would go to the One Fund. By Sunday, they had sold $600,000 worth of merchandise. By the end of that season, they had sold $2 million worth."

Wednesday, April 17, 2013, marked the date that Steinberg and Boston Red Sox Chief Experience Officer Sarah McKenna started to collaborate on a ceremony to honor those who were affected by the bombings. Steinberg said that after taking all elements into consideration, the ceremony was "really starting to take shape" by Thursday night, at which point he and McKenna were still working at the ballpark when they heard police cars outside the windows.

"Outside our windows at Fenway Park, on Brookline Avenue, police cars were flying down the street," Steinberg said. "Unmarked police cars. Cars that we would later realize were FBI cars, ambulances. We didn't know what was going on, because these live events were occurring before the news. We would later realize that when one of the killers had run over his brother, Beth Israel Deaconess, located right down the street, became a site where law enforcement was arriving. That was happening right outside our window."

Leaving the office that night, Steinberg and the rest of the Fenway Park staff still believed they would be playing a game the next night on Friday, April 19. Steinberg woke up the next morning to instructions to shelter in place, and the game would not be played that day after all. Once people were allowed to leave their homes again, Steinberg and McKenna started revising the ceremony.

"We get the news that the second killer has been apprehended, and the emotions we felt were relief, triumph, strength," he said. "And yet you must return to the sadness of the lives lost, for the trauma inflicted, for the lives affected. And yet you return to the resilience and the triumph and the strength, but you come back to the sadness, and you realize you're on an emotional merry-go-round. These are the emotions that come out your fingertips as you're revising the ceremony."

Once the ceremony was near completion, Steinberg said he felt concerned, because the finished product was "understandably heavy." It seemed trivial to hold a baseball game after everything that had happened. He wasn't sure how to hold a somber ceremony, then moments later play a baseball game. Then he asked his colleagues a question that changed everything: "What would you think if David Ortiz spoke?"

After a few internal conversations throughout the organization, and with Ortiz himself, it was decided that the Boston sports legend would indeed give a speech.

On April 20, 2013, the Red Sox returned to Fenway Park for the first home game since tragedy struck just five days prior. According to Steinberg, the Red Sox gave Ortiz some initial lines, but it was Ortiz on his own who added the famous, unforgettable, and unrepeatable sentence. It was also Ortiz who added the following: "And nobody's going to dictate our freedom."

"That was the transfer of emotion we needed to hear from Big Papi, whose nickname took on new meaning that day," Steinberg said.

Before the game, Steinberg got word that Neil Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil Diamond were at Logan Airport and on their way to Fenway. Upon their arrival, Steinberg said he thanked them for coming and asked if Neil wanted to sing.

Neil said he had to be at Fenway Park that day because ballparks across the country were paying tribute to Boston all week long by playing, "Sweet Caroline." He and his wife flew into Boston from Los Angeles that morning, arriving at 12:30 p.m., just in time for the game.

After Neil sang the beloved Boston anthem, Steinberg said that Katie thanked him for such a wonderful way to spend their anniversary. Shocked, Steinberg asked what anniversary it was, to which she replied, "Our first."

"The reason Neil Diamond couldn't sing 'Sweet Caroline' at Fenway's 100th was because it had been his wedding day," Steinberg said.

The City of Boston will never forget the tragic day nearly broke them on April 15, 2013. Nor will they ever forget the 2013 baseball season that helped them heal.

It's been 19 years since the Red Sox broke the proverbial curse by winning the 2004 World Series, and it's been 10 years since the 2013 World Series helped an entire city heal. All these years later, David Ortiz and Larry Lucchino haven't forgotten the important role each one played in the other's baseball journey.

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