MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: Absorbing the feel of Fenway was so much different then

Seeing Fenway Park makes me smile.

In fact, just seeing any part of Boston creates that same response.

So…

When the Mariners are in town, all those memories of Fenway come flooding back.

Just as an aside, the Mariners seem to be having a decent time in Boston over this weekend, too.

Surely, the Red Sox had no fun during that 8-2 pounding on Saturday.

Even that sort of trip, covering a visiting team that gives the Sox a good scrap, can fill up my scrapbook.

And trust me when I tell you…

The locals don’t take losses all that well.

Win or lose, though, you always absorb the feel of Fenway.

It’s so easy to recall the characters that have roamed the ballpark, the smell of fresh roasted peanuts under the grandstand, hearing the local reporters arguing about anything and everything, then wrapping up a game night with a cold one at Daisy Buchanan’s.

Sigh.

It’s hard to believe Daisy’s has been closed for a few years now, victim of rising rent in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.

Who ever thought that Fenway would suffer from gentrification?

WHERE TO start with some of the crazy stories I’ve taken away from Boston?

Best to leave basketball, football and hockey for another day, and stick with baseball for this trip backward.

Bear in mind that this is more than a look at just a few seasons in the rear-view mirror.

Most of the more enjoyable tales take us back decades.

The media members were different then.

Everyone takes the games seriously now, and phrases like WAR pop up regularly in game stories.

The old-timers would have had none of that, and there wasn’t a spot in the big leagues where reporters and columnists put on more of a show than in Boston.

You always felt like a player or two might actually punch out some wise-guy newspaper geek.

After their nightly post-game confrontations, reporters would retire to the press lounge on top of the Fenway roof, and hammer out stories insulting the Sox.

I’d always thought that the New York media was the toughest on its athletes, but…

Nah.

It was Boston.

I’m sure things are more civilized now, but I remember hilarious sessions in that lounge — with writers (years earlier, Ted Williams snidely called Boston writers the “Knights of the Keyboard”) finding new ways to put down the latest Sox gaffe.

They were aided by considerable lubrication, most notably some local cocktails called Cape Codders (vodka and cranberry juice).

Hoo-boy!

IT WAS also in Boston that I learned a sobering truth about big-league ballplayers.

Sure, you’ve heard all about steroids, and various PEDS — various methods, legal and some now illegal, by which players can alter their physical, mental and even emotional states.

It turns out there was plenty of crap available before that.

A player who is now in the Hall of Fame once told me: “The winning team is usually the first one to the medicine cabinet.”

I have a story that provides one solid anecdote to that theory, and this was long before anyone was juicing on steroids.

I was traveling with the Kansas City Royals, and we arrived in Boston at the end of an off day,

A daytime doubleheader was scheduled for Fenway the next afternoon.

DO YOU remember when Joe Namath owned some bars called “Bachelors III”?

Well, one of them was in Boston, and a few non-playing members of the Royals party were wrapping up the night at Namath’s saloon.

Suddenly, a young man literally fell into the place.

He managed to get up, with considerable help, and landed in our booth.

It was Sox outfielder Billy Conigliaro, and he was a mess.

Despite the guy’s condition, he was served a couple more drinks — until he was pretty much unconscious.

Eventually, Billy was poured into a taxi and sent home.

Presumably.

At that point, I made one of the more naïve statements of my life.

“There’s one guy who won’t be much of a factor tomorrow,” I said.

Right.

During the course of the doubleheader, Conigliaro hit three screaming line drives off the Green Monster in left field — and another bomb far, far over it.

Better living through chemicals.

I have dozens more stories from trips to Boston, every one of which somehow turned into an adventure.

Sheesh, I loved those trips.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published monthly during the offseason.