Most of sports Boston was focused on Fenway Park this weekend, where the big excitement of the American League pennant had concluded before the weekend was half over. But across the city, another 300,000 people — a number that would fill Fenway eight times over — spent a full two days watching another sporting event: the Head of the Charles Regatta.
The yearly rowing race counted 7,000 rowers (and coxswains) from 37 states and 28 countries. Rowers, ages 11 to 86, compete in sixty events — some with more than 70 boats this year. Onlookers lining the banks of the Charles watched as athletes in 15 second staggered starts raced three miles up the serpentine bends of the river, battling to chase and hold one another off through the narrow arches of seven bridges.
