Boston Sports: Fenway, the Garden & More

Fenway Park: America's most beloved ballpark

Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912, just days after the Titanic sank, and it is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. Its quirks are legendary. The Green Monster, the 37-foot wall in left field, has turned routine fly balls into doubles for more than a century. Out in the right field bleachers, a single red seat marks where Ted Williams hit the longest home run in park history in 1946.

For 86 years, Red Sox fans blamed the Curse of the Bambino, dating to the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, for their long title drought. It finally ended in 2004, and the Sox won again in 2007, 2013 and 2018. A guided tour takes you onto the field level, into the press box and up on top of the Monster.

Gillette Stadium: the Patriots in Foxborough

The Patriots were born in Boston. Billy Sullivan was awarded the American Football League's eighth and final franchise in 1959, and the Boston Patriots played their first game in 1960. For their first 11 seasons they had no home of their own, moving between Boston University's Nickerson Field, Harvard Stadium, Fenway Park and Boston College's Alumni Stadium.

In 1971 the team moved to a new stadium in Foxborough and became the New England Patriots, a fitting name for a team whose fans come from all six New England states. Robert Kraft bought the team in 1994, Gillette Stadium replaced the old stadium in 2002, and the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick era brought six Super Bowl titles between the 2001 and 2018 seasons, tied for the most in NFL history.

Gillette is not in Boston. Foxborough is about 30 miles southwest of downtown by road, roughly halfway to Providence, and the drive takes 40 minutes to an hour on a normal day and much longer on game days, when Route 1 backs up for miles. The easiest way for visitors is the MBTA's special event train from South Station, with stops at Back Bay and Dedham Corporate Center. It arrives about an hour before kickoff and leaves about 30 minutes after the game ends. Buy tickets ahead in the MBTA mTicket app, since regular passes are not accepted.

Make no mistake, though: the Patriots are woven into the fabric of Boston. Their Super Bowl parades rolled through downtown on duck boats, and on a fall Sunday the whole region stops for the game. Around the stadium, Patriot Place has restaurants, shops and The Hall at Patriot Place, the team's hall of fame. Gillette is also home to the New England Revolution, hosts big summer concerts, and welcomed matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. If you are visiting in the fall, a Patriots game is worth planning a weekend around.

The Head of the Charles Regatta

If the Marathon is Boston's spring ritual, the Head of the Charles is its great fall tradition. Every October since 1965, rowers from around the world have come to race the winding Charles River between Boston and Cambridge. Crews start one at a time, about 15 seconds apart, and race against the clock over a three-mile course.

The regatta was started by members of the Cambridge Boat Club on the advice of Harvard's sculling coach, and the local schools are still at its heart. Harvard's crews row out of Weld and Newell Boathouses right on the course, and Boston University, MIT, Northeastern and Boston College are all part of the scene, along with high school, club and alumni crews from all over. The bridges are the best seats: Weeks Footbridge and the Anderson and Eliot Bridges fill with spectators, and the tight turns beneath them are where races are won and lost.

Today it is a three-day weekend with more than 11,000 athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators. Bring a blanket and a hot cider, walk the riverbanks between the Boston University boathouse and the Eliot Bridge, and enjoy one of the prettiest fall weekends in New England.