¡°Sweet Caroline¡± remains a Fenway Park staple, but given the Red Sox¡¯s new home run celebration, ¡°Monster Mash¡± might be the more fitting anthem for 2025.
Boston¡¯s new tradition, which made its debut during the club¡¯s home opener against the Cardinals at Fenway Park on Friday afternoon, has players celebrating each home run by donning a Wally the Green Monster head -- a nod to the team¡¯s beloved mascot.
Conceived by Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran, the Wally head got plenty of use early on in Friday¡¯s game, with Trevor Story and Wilyer Abreu hitting back-to-back dingers in the bottom of the first inning as Boston jumped out to a 5-0 lead.
"It was great," Story said. "I think Jarren went out of his way to find that out or make that happen. It looks pretty good. It barely fits on our head, but I'll slam it on my head no matter what. It's a fun thing. And hopefully we can wear it a lot this year."
Duran confirmed that the idea was his, but he credited assistant general manager Raquel Ferreira for coming through with the prop.
"She told me [not to get my hopes up]," Duran said. "And then yesterday, Wally actually presented it to me. So it was kind of a cool thing to happen. ... I knew we had the Masa dumbbells and then we had the Boston Marathon medal. And it was just kind of like, ¡®Man, what are we gonna do this year?¡¯ At first, I was gonna use Wally's head. I'm like, ¡®There's no way we'd be able to fit that in the dugout.¡¯ So I just asked Raquel, ¡®Is there way we can get, like, a miniature Wally head?¡¯ And she made it happen. So praise to her."
Manager Alex Cora wasn't aware of the new addition until before the game, but he approved of it after seeing it in the batting cage before heading to the dugout.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, no way,'" Cora said. "But it's all fun. We're in the entertainment business, and people like it. So if they want to do it, they¡¯ve got the green light."