Elizabeth Dooley; Devoted Red Sox Fan Attended More Than 4,000 Games

Elizabeth Dooley, 87, devoted Red Sox fan who saw more than 4,000 consecutive games over 55 seasons at Fenway Park. The Boston Globe called Dooley “the grande dame of Fenway.” Ted Williams, the greatest Red Sox player, called her “the greatest Red Sox fan there’ll ever be.” A lifetime Bostonian, she fell in love with baseball in an era when few women were fans. It was a natural obsession: Her father, John Stephen Dooley, helped the Sox get a home at the Huntington Grounds in 1901 and was instrumental in convincing conservative Boston to support Sunday baseball. According to family lore, he attended every Boston baseball opener from 1894 until his death at 97 in 1970. His daughter was a schoolteacher for 39 years. She bought her first season ticket during World War II and decided to make baseball her hobby because she hated bridge, the traditional pastime for women. She quickly became a fixture at Fenway, giving the players Oreos and Starburst candies and calling Williams every year on his birthday. But she was not, she told the Christian Science Monitor a few years ago, just a fan. “A fan leaves in the seventh inning. I have always considered myself a friend of not only the Red Sox but the whole game. Being a friend means being there from the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ to the final out.” On the day she died, the Red Sox lost to the Yankees by a score of 22-1, their worst loss to the New York team in 77 years. On Monday in Dedham, Mass., after a brief illness.