The CT Softball Blog

The adorably precocious young 6-year-old, attending her first-ever Boston Red Sox game, found herself sitting inside one of the city’s most historic landmarks when she joined a legion of other Red Sox fans in a special tradition.

The child was given a magic marker to sign the infamous bright yellow Pesky Pole that designates fair territory from foul down the right field line.

Reaching high, she wrote, “F-E-N-W-A-Y.”

Behind her, a woman observed this and rooted her on, saying “Good job, now write your name.”

Fenway Jankowski simply turned to the lady and replied, “That is my name.”

• • •

On Saturday, April 19, with nothing else to do, I made the trip to Hale-Ray High School in Moodus to watch the host Noises take on Ellington’s Camryn Fisher and the Purple Knights in a non-league game.

I had seen Fisher, the state’s highly touted Division 1-bound pitcher, play before, but I wanted to see Hale-Ray’s Lily Jahne play, as well. Jahne had committed to play D-1 softball at St. John’s, so I expected a good pitcher’s duel.

I never expected 14 innings, nor an unfathomable 70 combined strikeouts as Ellington eked out a 1-0 victory over Hale-Ray.

Nor did I expect a sophomore shortstop from the losing team to stick with me the way she did.

That day, Jankowski was oh-for-five with four strikeouts. She also made the game’s only error, a mistake that coupled with a wild pitch, allowed Ellington to escape that day with a win.

But the name.

Fenway Jankowski.

It was William Shamkespeare who once penned the line, “What’s in a name?” when he let Juliet make the query in “Romeo and Juliet.”

As a life-long Red Sox fan, who saw his first game in the summer of 1975, I wondered the same thing about Fenway Jankowski. What’s in a name?

She had to be named after the historic Red Sox ballpark that sits at 4 Jersey Street (formerly 4 Yawkey Way), a David Ortiz home run away from Kenmore Square, didn’t she?

One day shy of six months after I first heard her name, I made the journey to East Hampton to find out.

Jankowski, the starting shortstop for the CT Sirens Blue 16U travel team, was playing in a tournament at Seamster Park. As such, just as I did in the spring, with nothing to do, I made the journey to get my question answered.

I introduced myself to her mother, Tonya, and asked if her daughter was indeed named after the historic ballpark of my beloved Red Sox.

“She was,” Tonya told me shortly after the Sirens had beaten the Wolcott Eagles 16U team by a 19-5 score. “And it has a very interesting story behind it.”

Sadly, the Sirens were playing back-to-back to games to open the tournament, so I would have to wait an hour and 15 minutes, and the proverbial finishing of the inning, before I heard the story of how Fenway Jankowski came to be.

• • •

Fenway Alana Jankowski was born earlier than expected and with complications that left her mother in a medically induced coma.

While pregnant, Tonya and her husband, and Fenway’s dad, Erik, were going through a book of baby names, a trove of Janes and Jessicas, Ellies and Elenas, Susans and Sarahs.

The book even had a section devoted to “Sports” names, including Wrigley and Shea and even Dodger.

“He is a die-hard Boston fan,” Tonya said of her husband. “I was like, ‘No Fenway?’ And he’s like, ‘Yes!’ And I was like, ‘No.’”

The couple decided that Fenway would be a nice middle name for their daughter. But what would the first name be?

That was a decision left up in the air … at least until the little girl decided she couldn’t wait until game time to arrive into this world.

Tonya shook her head with the 16-year-old memory coming back to her.

“We toyed with it for a while, but I had conceded that the middle name was fine,” Tonya recalled. “She was early and I did have complications, and I was in a medically induced coma for a while, and my husband and my sister ultimately filled out her birth certificate. They put her name down ‘Fenway’ as the first name and then made a middle name up and had me sign it all under medication. So, I literally was taken out of a coma and I was like, ‘What is my child’s name?’ That’s the Cliff Notes version of how she got her name.”

Fenway grew up watching the Red Sox with her dad, learning the game of baseball early through what she witnessed on television and learned from him, himself a former ballplayer in high school.

When her own career started, coaches would fill out the line-up card and next to uniform No. 13 they would have to write in, “Fenway Jankowski.”

Tonya smiled and said, “I don’t think I could picture her being called anything else.”

In other words, it appears dad—who once named the family’s turtles “Big Papi” and “Manny”—hit a home run that would last a lifetime.

• • •

Shortly after the Sirens edged the CT Charmers 13U squad, 4-3, in a game in which she was 2-for-2 with two runs scored, and two RBIs (a game-winning two-run double in the last inning), I sat down with Fenway to talk about her name, her life and her softball career.

“I like it now,” she admitted. “When I was younger, though, I was kind of like, oh, when I turn 18, I’m going to change my name. But then I kind of grew into it. I like my name now. I think it suits me.”

Jankowski, like her dad, is a big Red Sox fan and these days her favorite player is Jarren Duran.

While growing up, though, she always had a soft spot for Red Sox great Dustin Pedroia, the undersized and hard-nosed former second baseman for the Red Sox.

It makes sense given Jankowski came into this world undersized and remains one of the scrappier players on the all the teams she plays for and against.

Her heart, however, can’t be measured which is why she is such a key cog in both the Hale-Ray program and with the CT Sirens travel organization.

The family realized there was something special about her soon after she got kicked out of her local T-ball league.

“The reason why she had such a short stay in T-ball was because she was the only kid who could throw a ball,” Tonya said. “On the first day they lined up all the kids to just kind of fire a ball at a fence to kind of see where they are at. My husband thinks very highly of her and was like, ‘She can’t play here.’ They were like, ‘No, everybody has to start in T-ball.’ So, they line everybody up, and she starts firing the ball into the fence, and they were like, ‘Oh!’ She didn’t even complete an entire day of T-ball before she was moved up.”

And just like that a softball player with the baseball name was born.

By the time, Jankowski arrived at Hale-Ray she was ready to become the Noises’ starting shortstop, a job she has held for the last two seasons.

“I think it’s fun playing shortstop,” Jankowski said. “I mean in the outfield, you only have one thing to do. You catch the ball and throw it in. At first base, you catch the ball and sometimes you have to throw it somewhere. But shortstop, you have to do so many things.”

One thing that has always made Jankowski different from other players is her knowledge of the game. A lot of that intangible knowledge comes from the days and nights watching the Red Sox with her dad.

Hits come and go. Errors happen. But knowing what to do when you need to do it is embedded from within and Jankowski has a deep knowledge of the game that truly does set her apart between the baselines.

She hopes to someday play in college and since Sept. 1, when coaches could start recruiting juniors via direct contact, she is starting to hear from teams at the next level.

“I hope to play in college,” she said.

That leap is still two years off, however.

• • •

As the fall season winds down, Jankowski will start gearing up for her junior season at Hale-Ray.

The Noises were 17-3 in the regular season a year ago and advanced all the way to the CIAC Class S semifinals. They knocked off two-time defending state champ Coventry, 3-2, in the quarterfinals before falling to St. Paul Catholic in the ensuing round.

“We are going to have open spots for freshmen and we’re going to have probably a brand-new outfield, but I think it’s going to be good,” Jankowski said. “I think we’re going to have a lot more speed in the outfield too, so I think there’s going to be a lot more for Lily to rely on.”

• • •

In the state of Connecticut, it’s pretty easy for a Red Sox fan to live on the east side of New Haven.

Still, there are plenty of Yankees and Mets fans dotting the state to give a kid named Fenway a hard time.

The Jankowskis—well, perhaps the male half—found a way to combat that quite early in Fenway’s life.

“She took some ribbing,” Tonya admitted. “My husband has friends that are not Red Sox fans. One of the first sentences she learned to say was ‘Yankees Stink!’ She would be so tiny and you’d just say, ‘Fenway?’ and she’d say, ‘Yankees stink!”

Fenway Jankowski doesn’t stink on the softball field, though.

Far from it. She’s a contact hitter with deceiving power and most importantly speed. A walk is as good as double sometimes. She’s a defensive stalwart with range and a solid arm. And, again, she has a knowledge of the game that is impressive at the high school level.

And, as far as this Red Sox fan is concerned, she has the coolest name in Connecticut High School softball history.

I have been a life-long Red Sox fan.

And, now I’m definitely a Fenway Jankowski fan, as well.

(From The Dugout is a regular column written by CT Softball Blog Publisher John Nash)

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