May 8th won’t be just another Fenway Friday on the 2026 Red Sox schedule.

Before the second game of a quartet with the Tampa Bay Rays this Friday evening, the Red Sox will commemorate the 125th anniversary of their first-ever home game. Living Red Sox alumni with retired numbers will deliver ceremonial first pitches.  Wade Boggs (No. 26), Carlton Fisk (27), Pedro Martinez (45), David Ortiz (24), Jim Rice (14) and Carl Yastrzemski (8) are confirmed participants.

The first Red Sox home game took place May 8, 1901 at Huntington Avenue Grounds, which was built on a former circus lot ahead of the American League’s inaugural season in 1901. There, the team known until December 1907 as the Boston Americans defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in a best-of-nine format to win the first official World Series in 1903. On May 5, 1904, 36-year-old right-hander Cy Young, whose legendary major league career began in the much-older National League in 1890, threw the first perfect game of MLB’s Modern Era (est. 1901).

Boston won its second consecutive American League pennant in 1904, but New York Giants owner John T. Brush and manager John McGraw refused to compete against “upstart club” from what they saw as an inferior league, and so there was no World Series that year. Eight years later, the Red Sox defeated the Giants in the 1912 Fall Classic.

The Red Sox played at their first home field until 1911, after which time was demolished. Today, the Huntington Avenue Grounds are the heart of Northeastern University’s campus. But the original home of the Red Sox is marked by “World Series Way,” and where the pitchers’ mound once rose out of the earth, stands a statue of Young in his stance.

Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912. It has been sole titleholder of “Major League Baseball’s Oldest Ballpark” since the end of the 1999 season, when the Detroit Tigers played their last game at Tiger Stadium, which opened the same day as Fenway.

Red Sox immortals

Ahead of Thursday’s series opener, the Red Sox will induct their 2026 Hall of Fame class: outfielder Johnny Damon, pitchers Jon Lester and Mike Timlin, and longtime public address announcer Sherm Feller.

Damon was a star outfielder on the 2004 World Series team. Timlin won rings with Boston in ’04 and ’07, Lester in ’07 and ’13.

Feller, a native of Brockton, Mass., served as Fenway’s PA voice from 1967 until just before his death in January 1994. He was also a well-known radio personality and composer.

Bill Mueller’s July 24, 2004 home run is this year’s Sox HOF “Memorable Moment.”

The induction ceremony will take place at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square from 4-5 p.m. ET Thursday and will be livestreamed on Red Sox social media channels. The group will then be honored on the field during pregame ceremonies before the 7:10 p.m. first pitch.