Pam Kenn Cherishes Enduring Bonds Entering Final Red Sox Season
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Pam Kenn originally joined the Boston Red Sox as a passionate sports fan looking to make an impact on the industry, but the effect she’s had on other people’s lives is one those individuals will never forget.
Kenn serves as the senior vice president of community, alumni and player relations. Before her promotion, she was senior director of public affairs for three seasons and was the team’s director of media relations from 2008-2013.
But before her official roles with the Red Sox, she entered the organization as an intern in 2000, and as a multiple-sport athlete who grew up idolizing Wade Boggs, the experience was “overwhelmingly magical.”
“I don’t think there’s ever been a position that I had at the Red Sox that I was fully prepared for, especially when I transitioned into media relations,” Kenn told NESN.com. “When I first just entered the department at a lower level, I was only, I think, 26 years old. I learned great things at UMass, like unbelievable skills, but you don’t really know until you apply them. And a lot of it was sort of observing, and listening and asking questions.
“I didn’t know what I was doing when I started. It definitely was a lot of learning curve. I had my own role models and mentors, both women and men, especially the women who helped me sort of navigate but also to learn and to be open, who took me under their wing and said, ‘You have the passion, the intelligence, and the drive, and sort of the honesty and the wholeheartedness, you’re going to be OK.’ But there were a lot of things I had to learn along the way.”
Kenn eventually learned the nuances of how to handle people. She began to understand not everyone is the same, and it helped influence her work in media relations with reporters and players.
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The relationships Kenn built over her two decades with the Red Sox were impactful across the organization. It was a bond David Ortiz did not forget during his Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech in 2022 when he thanked his “little sis.”
The magnitude of that moment wasn’t lost on Kenn and those around her.
“It’s wild, right? You sit there, and your phone blows up, which is great,” Kenn said. “It totally means something to me, of course, but it means something to my husband, to my kids, to my stepkids, to my parents, to my brothers. I love that for them as well. But the good thing I feel is that with someone like David, Tim Wakefield, Pedro (Martinez), I knew where I stood with them because we developed a very open and honest working relationship.
“It’s like figuring people out and knowing how to work together well, when to, push when not to push too hard, when to let something go and just caring about them as people and not just as ‘Big Papi.’ Caring about people as parents, as sons, as husbands and wives and all these different things, you have to care about the person. I’m grateful, especially with David. It wasn’t that he was thanking me because I helped him. He was thanking me because we developed a really strong friendship and, and that friendship itself is more important to me than him mentioning me in his speech, but it sure is nice to hear.”
Kenn’s work to strengthen ties between the community and the Red Sox included Samaritans, a non-profit whose goal is to help prevent suicide and help individuals who have lost a loved one to suicide. Kenn became an advocate of the Boston chapter of the non-profit after she lost her brother to suicide in 2019. She ran the 2022 Boston Marathon for Samaritans in honor of her brother, and the non-profit took the field at Fenway Park before joining the NESN broadcast to help spread its message.
“What Pam’s done is really giving us an opportunity to have a voice and also to convey that the Red Sox care about people in the community, not just the players, not just the staff, but everybody in the community, and they want to want to champion, with her, this idea of if you’re struggling, or someone you know, is struggling, that we’re here for you.” Samaritans president and CEO Kathy Marchi told NESN.com.
Marchi noted Kenn is “passionate about her advocacy” of Samaritans and her work to give non-profits like Samaritans a larger voice was one she did not “underestimate.”
The 2024 season will be Kenn’s final one with the Red Sox. Despite multiple championships and countless experiences, Kenn says the “highlight” of her career was helping Alex Cora set up relief efforts for Puerto Rico after it was hit by Hurricane Maria. The current Boston manager was the Astros bench coach in 2017, and he texted Kenn and Dustin Pedroia to help gather more resources following Hurricane Harvey’s effect on Houston the same year.
“It was just a situation where it didn’t matter who you played for or what was going on in the soon-to-be playoffs,” Kenn said. “It just mattered that we were there for each other.”
When Cora was hired as Red Sox manager the following year, he urged the team to send a plane of supplies to help Puerto Rico. Kenn led the effort and received help from other departments of the organization to help with relief efforts, which cemented a bond that was highlighted by Boston bringing the World Series trophy to Puerto Rico when it won it in 2018.
For Kenn, it “encapsulated relationships, and community, and teamwork and everything that is good.” And as she enters her final season with the Red Sox, she’ll try to cherish every moment.
“I remember my old boss, the late Dick Bresciani, some days he used to just go stand in the grandstands on a Sunday morning. And he would just look at the field,” Kenn said. “And I asked him what he’s doing and he said he was going to church. And so I’m looking forward to having a few more times at church before the end of the year.”
It will be a “bittersweet” home opener for Kenn as the Red Sox will celebrate the 2004 World Series team and honor the lives of Tim and Stacy Wakefield. There will be other celebrations and tributes throughout the season, but what will be unforgettable for those honored is the impact Kenn had on them.