Oregon Father And Son Build 1/3-Scale Fenway Park Replica On Their Farm

What was your backyard like? Perhaps you had a tire swing, or a play structure, or an above-ground pool. My yard abutted wetlands; mosquitos rose angrily every spring. Chances are, whatever you had, it wasn't as cool as what Jim Maciariello and his son Ben built in Drain, Oregon.

Look at that thing. It's Fenway. Want another angle? Boom, Fenway. Now, granted, the Maciariello masterpiece is 1/3 the size of Fenway—it's built for Wiffleball, not the real game.

It started out as just one fence, writes Bob Welch of the (Eugene, Ore.) Register-Guard:

But nurtured by the soggy Oregon winter that followed, father and son dreamed bigger.

"Dad, why not build a scaled-down Fenway?" Ben asked.

Jim didn't need much convincing.

"Baseball," he says, "is about kids and fun and remembering your favorite players. Baseball is timeless. And Fenway is the oldest park in America. So, we thought: ‘How cool would it be to have our family and friends trying to hit balls over the Green Monster?'"

So they built the whole thing with oriented strandboard: the Monster, the triangle in center field, the Pesky Pole. They seeded the field and laid down basepaths. They splashed it in green paint and dubbed it Fenway West. Friends and high school teams sometimes play there. It's awesome, even though the real thing might not be.

Edit: Reader Shiloh has passed along a park milestone video he shot at Fenway West.

Fenway fantasyland [The Register-Guard, h/t Kdawgq]