Steve Willoughby wrote:

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Would anyone know if the old Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston had a
wooden home run fence or a rope "fence" when the Red Sox played there,
particularly during the 1908 season? I've looked at several online
sources, run a search through the SABR-L list, and perused some photos,
and while I've found info on the odd dimensions of the field, I've not
been able to determine with any certainty if the games were played with
some kind of home run fence (whether wooden or rope) in front of the
outfield bleachers. Thanks for any tips on this.

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I have researched every home run hit in the history of the ballpark.  In none of the games, in which home runs were hit, was there any mention of fences other than the perimeter fences or starting with the 1905 season the front of the LF bleachers, and in the 1910-11 seasons the front of the third base bleachers that extended into fair territory in LF.  There were several games in which ropes were used to limit the overflow crowds in the outfield.    Following is an extract of my forthcoming book (Ballparks of the Deadball Era by McFarland-Spring 2008) that covers the various configurations of Huntington Ave Baseball Grounds.

Plans for the park were completed in February 1901, and called for a covered grandstand and uncovered bleachers located down the first and third base lines.  Total seating capacity was to be 9,000 ⁽¹³⁾.  Groundbreaking for the park occurred on March 7, 1901.  The structure of the grandstand was built with expanded metal and roughcast concrete ⁽¹⁰⁾.  The rest of the park was built of wood, and the roof rested on a number of 28 foot high columns.  There were four entrances to the park-two on Huntington Ave and two on Rodgers Ave.  One of the two entrances on Huntington Ave, the one near the LF corner, was the access point for a wide walkway into the park which was at an angle to both the LF foul line and the Huntington Ave fence.  This diagonal walkway limited the LF distance and made the LF dimension necessarily less than the distance from home plate to the Huntington Ave fence.  There was a sloping embankment in LF in front of the Huntington Ave fence that started about 50 feet in front of the fence and was used to accommodate standee overflow crowds.  At the time of the 1901 opening of the park, there were no stands or bleachers in the outfield.  The grandstand and home plate were in the southwest corner of the park site.  An odd feature of the park was a large in-play tool shed located in CF.  In addition there was an in-play scoreboard mounted above the fence in right center field.

After the 1904 season, a rectangular set of bleachers was added in LF ⁽¹⁴⁾.  These bleachers ran from a short distance left of the CF corner to nearly the junction of the entrance walkway fence and the Huntington Ave fence,  These bleachers did not, because they could not, run all the way to the LF foul line.  These bleachers consisted of 14 rows of seats, and had a low fence in front, and this last feature contributed to a number of bounce home runs into the LF bleachers starting with the 1905 season.  The addition of these LF bleachers increased the park’s capacity by an estimated 3,500 seats.  According to the Boston Globe-the park’s total capacity, reported as 9,000 when the park opened in 1901, was now surprisingly reported to be about 17,000.  The next change to the ballpark was before the 1909 season.  A 1909 game account by the writer for the Chicago Tribune included the observation, “President Taylor (of the Boston Red Sox) improved the park-new bleachers in CF, and moved the press box to the roof “⁽¹⁵⁾.  There was no mention of any increase in seating capacity.  The next expansion was before the 1910 season and involved the extension of the third base bleachers into fair territory in LF.  This new section of bleachers crossed the LF foul line at about a 45 degree angle and extended to within 20-25 feet of the pre-existing LF bleachers.  Having two set of bleachers referred to as LF bleachers starting with the 1910 season, led in the newspaper game accounts to numerous ambiguous references to home runs hit into the “LF bleachers”.

In my research into Major League Ballparks of the Deadball Era, I found only one instance (1901-19) of the use of rope fences-that was at the pre-1909 Polo Grounds where the “fence” from about straightaway LF to about straightaway RF consisted of ropes strung on wooden post about 3-4 feet in height.    This arrangement led to numerous bounce home runs that rolled through the ropes.

Ron Selter