(CNN) -- Is it OK to not like Fenway Park? Can you say so without sounding as if you're the kind of guy who would love to break in and trash Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, Graceland, Disneyland and Hogwarts? Is there anyone from New England who would go, hmmm, maybe you're right? Or would everyone there like to see you sentenced to 20 years in Shawshank for insulting Boston's baseball park, which in that corner of America is considered a hate crime? Samuel L. Clemens (no relation to Roger), aka Mark Twain (a plain-talkin' Midwestern indigene like myself), once wrote of a certain Massachusetts metropolis: "One of the most engaging peculiarities of Boston is her reverence for her traditions, her relics, her antiquities." He was referring to her Massacre, not her ballpark, but I think he really nailed her.
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Boston's Fenway Park opened 100 years ago today on April 20, 1912
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Mike Downey says insulting Fenway Park is practically a hate crime in the Boston area
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Downey on Fenway: "I believe its time has come and gone"
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He'd love to see "a new, pristine, up-to-the-minute place to watch the Sox"
Two years later, damn near to the day, a new @placeholder place of business opened its gates to the public.