African or European Swallow?

A lot of people have asked me if I planned to continue this blog while at school. Fearing such continuation would lead to the mass boredom of all 12 of my readers, I decided against it. I did not want to have to start every entry with something like "Today when I was studying at the library..." but forgive me when I say:

Today when I was studying at the library, I was deep in thought about whether it is possible for someone to own the air space above their property when all of a sudden a pigeon of some considerable size flew right into the window next to me!! It made quite the thud as it went limp and fell towards the ground below. Heads popped out of cubicles everywhere and I got up to see if the little fellow was alright. Alas, I couldn't see that far down.

I may have a headache from the reading I have to do but I'm sure I've got nothing on that poor guy! It's all about perspective, right?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls…Welcome to Fenway Park.

Well, this is it. We’ve reached the pinnacle, climbed the mountain, saw all there is to see, etc. etc. etc. I really did not want this journey to end but I thought there would be no way more fitting than to finish at Fenway Park. To be fair, I will warn you all that this post will be the longest of the trip and most likely will take up quite a fair amount of your time. The word "EPIC" comes to mind.

All over the rest of the country I had compared bits and pieces of Fenway to each stadium and now it’s time to see how Fenway, on the whole, stacked up against the other 29 major league parks. Truth be told, I actually was lucky enough to attend two other games in Boston this year (one with Lindsay early in the season and one with Brandon which I’ll explain in more detail – thanks guys!!) but for my “official review” I went with Gretchen to a game against the A’s and tried to move around the park, just like always, and also stay sober enough to take coherent notes and give the stadium a proper review.

Brandon invited me to a game against the Angels on Wednesday July 30th and my “official” game was on Friday August 1st with the team having an off day on the Thursday in between. Normally this wouldn’t be significant, but given that the MLB trading deadline fell on that particular Thursday, in between the games, it turned out to have quite an impact! Having seen those two games means I saw the end of the Manny Ramirez era in Boston (great pictures to follow below) and also the beginning of Jason Bay’s time patrolling left field.

Before the Angels game I went to the new “Bleacher Bar” on Lansdowne St. with Brandon and Riley. For those of you who haven’t heard about this, the bar is located under Fenway’s bleacher section, is new this year and gives patrons a field level view of Fenway Park from straightaway center field! There is a garage door size opening in one of the walls and the warning track is literally on the other side of a few inches of glass.

The bar isn’t directly affiliated with the Red Sox and is open year round. Given that it’s inside Fenway Park, I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re paying in rent! A few other stadiums around the country had something similar to this (US Cellular in Chicago comes to mind) but I thought this was the best just given how close you are to the field. During the game a player could literally crash into the wall right at your table! As if that wasn’t enough, check this out.


Apologies again to those who are easily offended but if you hadn’t figured it out, this is the view from one of the men’s room urinals. This way you’re guaranteed never to miss a second of the action; this place thought of everything!! I even managed to get myself a few suspicious looks while snapping a photo of my friends in action.


The Bleacher Bar is a great “pregame” location because the beers are WAY cheaper than inside the stadium. This is a theme among all the bars surrounding the park though. I didn’t see a comparable selection of watering holes anywhere else in the country. The bars in Chicago surrounding Wrigley were great but I still have to give Boston the nod on this one. We even had the number 2 baseball bar in the country, the Cask ‘N Flagon. I’m not sure why they’re so happy to tout their status as number 2 but I do know there’s always a line to get in before and after games.


I’d also like to point out various other goings-on in the above picture. There is the famous Citgo sign on the left, the sign on the Cask singing its praises as baseball’s number 2 bar, the street sign for Lansdowne St. (which, by the way, was undergoing massive amounts of construction when I was there) and also the “Dice-K” sign, the significance of which is lost on me.

Aside from the bars, the area surrounding Fenway had plenty of other great things to offer. Like many other teams, the Red Sox have paid homage to their greatest player ever; in this case they built a statue of Ted Williams.


I don’t fancy myself much of a sculptor so I’m not an expert on proportions or anything but doesn’t that hat look like it’s just going to swallow the child hole?? Either way, something was off about this statue and it creeped me out. Moving on a bit further I discovered a sight I hadn’t seen in a long time. I think the media coverage of the Red Sox is directly proportional to the passion of the fan base. Take a look at all of these media trucks lined up outside the park.


I didn’t see anything like this at any other stadium in the country. Granted, this picture was taken one day after the Manny Ramirez trade so there was all kinds of national attention swirling around the Red Sox but I’ve seen similar sights almost every other time I’ve been at Fenway Park. All of the local news stations always have a truck and a reporter to cover the game and then there are all of the cable stations that also follow and report on the team. NESN (the New England Sports Network) is one of the few stations of its kind where a localized region has a fan base interested enough to support an entire sports channel devoted to the teams from that area (in this case the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins). That’s mighty impressive! To wit, here you can check out Tom Caron, Jim Rice and Gordon Edes doing what they do best.


Side Note: If anyone can let me know whether that usage of “to wit” was appropriate or not it would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been trying to work it in for the last 29 parks and it just never seemed appropriate :-)

OK, I’m 1200 words into this post and we haven’t even got inside the stadium yet! There’s still one bit I have to cover though. I can say it definitively now: on Red Sox game day, Yawkey Way is like no other street in the country. It runs adjacent to Fenway Park’s 3rd base/home plate area, stretches roughly 150 yards and is the picture of absolute pandemonium before each game. I could never get enough of the atmosphere and the buzz that permeates the entire block. Without fail, you always find the die-hard fans with their thick accents talking about what Francona is going to do with the lineup that day, the recent bandwagon jumpers wearing their pink hats and talking about how cute Varitek is or saying they’ve never heard of a guy called Jason Bay, the first-timers who completely pack the largest souvenir store in the country and the drunks stumbling their way towards the bleachers, trying to avoid getting ejected before first pitch. It is a kaleidoscope of passion, unmatched anywhere else in the nation.

The street was filled with masses of people decked out in their sox gear, sausage carts, peanut/pistachio venders, purveyors of that liquid gold we like to call beer and, of course, “Big League Brian!” This guy has the greatest job. He just walks around on stilts before every game and takes photos with fans, plays catch with them and generally seems to have a good time.


One last note I want to mention about Yawkey Way is that for the game against the Athletics I ran into Steve’s uncle Harry! Steve and I stayed with Harry and Diane in LA when we were there for the Angels and Dodgers games and Harry had just come over to this coast to catch a game at each of Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. Small freakin’ world, huh?!

Harry: if you see this, I'd love to get the picture we took to put on here for posterity!

Game Notes:

It’s not really fair to include updates and renovations at Fenway because I didn’t get to do that for the other stadiums but, too bad, I’m going to do it anyway. The Red Sox have really made some nice upgrades since I was a little kid. The stadium is still old and definitely feels it at times but the new management team that took over earlier this millennium have done a great job of adding bits and pieces here and there every year. One of those renovations was to add seats atop the Green Monster. No, I didn’t have tickets there and, sadly, this was as close as I could get.

I don’t know what the big deal is; the view isn’t even that great, right?? This turned into somewhat of a theme though. I knew it going in but was still disappointed with the lack of unfettered access to many parts of the stadium. Pretty much the entire “upper deck” section ringing the infield is off limits to the common fan. Thank God Susan got me those EMC tickets for a game two years ago or else I think I would have had a tantrum then and there not knowing what I was missing. It’s too bad that most of the luxury seats are sold to corporate sponsors but at least the boxes get used, unlike in some other cities *cough*Cleveland*cough*.

One of the newer areas I did get to check out was the Budweiser roof deck in right field. This is the view from below.


And here is me, wistfully gazing into the distance contemplating why, oh lord, WHY I decided it would be a good idea to go into 6-figure debt instead of finding someone to pay me to travel and write for the rest of my life!

Anyway, this area had tabletop seating and plenty of standing room. They also had a very large, full-service bar if you just wanted to hang out and drink with the game in the background. This was very similar to the “red porch” in Washington and considering tickets up there cost $115 it really is not a bad deal to try and get a standing room ticket for $20 then head on up to the bar for the game.

I guess now is as good a time as any to address the ticket prices at Fenway Park. On the right side of the first Bud roof deck picture above you can see some steel bleachers; these are called “Conigliaro’s Corner.” This was an addition by the Sox last year to make the park seem more family friendly. Can we pause there for a second though? I just paid an average of $14 per ticket at every single other stadium in the country and now I’m going to get the privilege of shelling out $25 to sit on freezing cold or burning hot steel (pick your month, maybe May is tolerable?) while craning my neck from the highest point in the park to try and get a glimpse of a game being played below? Where do I sign up?!

I understand the whole “supply and demand” thing and that Sox tickets are THE thing to get right now (trust me, I paid $110 per ticket back in March for $50 seats behind a pole for my game) but it still sucks that the scalpers/third-party agencies can’t be better controlled. Outside Fenway there were scalpers EVERYWHERE and they all had handfuls of tickets. I’d like to think something could be done about that. But I digress, after one more of me, it’s back to the park!


I was actually quite pleased with what I picked up on when I returned to Fenway after having seen the rest of the country. Purposefully or not, I’ve definitely become adept at picking up on things that are important to me at a baseball stadium and Gretchen and I discovered a few other things that I normally don’t notice or don’t think are cool/important.

This was the first time I had seen one of these machines at a park, at least for the fans to use. The Yankees giving out free cups of ice water trumps it but here’s a picture of Gretchen and her very talkative new best friend getting cooled off.

The grandstand section at Fenway makes up the vast majority of the seats in the house and almost all of them down the first base/right field line are TERRIBLE. They face straight ahead so you have to turn your neck or body for the entire game (you know how much that sucks, people with back troubles!) and usually there is a pole blocking your view of some of the game. Plus, the seats themselves are old, hard, wooden, dilapidated pieces of crap.


For as terrible as their condition is though, if you somehow manage to score free tickets to the lower levels or otherwise shell out half your life savings, the “close” seats at Fenway are closer than anywhere else in the country. Take a look at this next picture. Fans in the seats right near the field or dugout are RIGHT THERE. I sat in the second row behind the dugout a few years back and I haven’t had that kind of experience at any other time in my life. It’s pretty much like being courtside at an NBA game, only better because you’re at a baseball game!


When my lap around the stadium finally ended and we found our seats it seemed only fitting that there was a pole blocking my view of second base. Frankly, I wouldn’t have expected anything else.

High Points:

-The above picture is a great example of the first “high point” I want to make about Fenway Park. My notes, from both games, are filled with little tidbits about how great the fans were and I don’t know if I can stress this enough. My recent stadium reviews have found me doting on the “east coast” stadiums and how the crowds are more into the game than elsewhere around the country. Well, I really tried to not let my Red Sox bias influence my review of the stadium but please believe me when I say that Sox fans truly are a different breed. Getting back to the picture, the stands were virtually packed by the first pitch for every Fenway game I attended. If you look at the stats below you’ll see that the stadium was filled over capacity at 103.6%. The atmosphere at Fenway Park, even on a Wednesday night in late July, was like no other stadium in the entire country, period.

-I got to see Josh Beckett pitch. It’s always fun to see the ace of a staff work his magic (even though we lost that game).

-I mentioned this on a few occasions in other posts and my theory rang true. Other than guarding the various “exclusive” sections of the park, ushers were only around and in my business if I needed one. Given that Fenway sells out on a regular basis the ushers aren’t going to concern themselves with fans sitting in their exact assigned seats because, for the most part, people are able to police themselves and the ushers can stick to their real duties of helping people find their section or kicking out the meatheads who can’t correctly read their ticket.

-Rachel gave me this idea and it actually worked out pretty well! If you let peanuts soak in your beer long enough they’re absolutely delicious when you eat them whole, shell and all! At first I gave them maybe 5 minutes and they were disgusting but I left them in a bit longer and, lo and behold, c’est magnifique!

-I’m going to keep referring back to this but I can’t help it. Throughout the game there were ZERO scoreboard prompts or little matching games or condiment races. At Fenway Park it was all about the baseball with zero frills attached. Fans went absolutely bonkers over pregame introductions and even the most routine plays, then the decibels jumped up ten-fold when anything meaningful happened. At each game I went to I paid attention to the baseball, not the scoreboard or the music or the food or the mascot, just the game. The fans got their own chants going at just the appropriate times and I realized that was what had been missing around the rest of the country. It just didn’t happen in places like Kansas City or Texas or Florida. I LOVED it!

-I love the creativity shown by the young entrepreneurs who peddle the tee shirts outside the park.

Hmmm…Bartles and James? Smirnoff Ice? I wonder…

-I guess at most other places in the country this would have been a low point but I was actually pleasantly surprised at the prices in Fenway Park. I had expected the Yankees and Red Sox to charge the highest prices in the country but I’d have to say the Nationals and Mets were the worst offenders. At Fenway you could get a hot dog for $4.75, a pretzel for $3.75, candy for $2.50 and a foot-long hot dog for $5.00. The beer was “one size fits all” at $7.50 for 16oz. and, frankly, I was expecting much worse across the board.

-Good old northeast liberalism reared its head as in between a few innings during the game “Rosie the Recycler” girls trotted up and down the aisles collecting things that could be recycled. That was nice to see and also a first in the country. Also, for the record, I don’t know if these girls had a name or not but I think it should be "Rosie the Recycler" if it isn’t already.

-The most beautiful wall in the country.

-Most likely it was due to the game being sold out but there was always a vendor around when you needed one (save for beer vendors, but more on that later). With their bright yellow shirts it was easy to pick them out of the crowd and all you had to do was raise an arm if you needed something. The peanut and cotton candy guys also delivered in a big way. I knew I wasn’t crazy when I kept talking about them throwing things across multiple aisles. It was nice to be home!

-Beach balls being batted around the bleachers!!

-Like the guy who was on point in Philly, the music people at Fenway played “a little less conversation, a little more action” when the A’s pitching coach went to talk to his pitcher. Good stuff.

-You can chalk up this next one as the only thing the scoreboard does to get fans “into” the game. After the top half of the 8th inning the scoreboard always plays “Sweet Caroline” and the fans get all kinds of into it. I’d say half the stadium was at least tipsy at this point so everyone thought they could actually sing and you should have heard some of the notes and words coming out of people. The fans behind us on Wednesday were from out of town and I’ve never heard Mr. Diamond’s song butchered so badly. That part wasn’t what I’d call a “high point” but the tradition itself certainly is.

-You may be wondering what the scoreboard actually does do in between innings if not showing silly graphics or condiment races. Well, most of the time between innings they play highlight montages. Gretchen brought up the good point that on Friday I’m sure some poor intern had to spend hours either editing Manny OUT of all of those highlights or creating new, fresh ones instead. Either way, I’m glad I’m not that poor sap.

Wait, what am I talking about? I would LOVE to work for the Red Sox!!

-Here’s me…wishing I worked for the Red Sox.

-I’m not sure if it was exactly a “high point” but it certainly was not a low point so I’m going to include the Manny Ramirez/Jason Bay dynamic in this section. During what turned out to be Manny’s last game as a member of the Red Sox he again was up to his old tricks and Brandon pointed it out so I could capture it on film. Aside from jogging down the line to first base or refusing to play, he also managed to make the inside of the Green Monster his second home for the last few months. During a pitching change on Wednesday night he made one of his now infamous trips inside the wall…who knows for what.

Gee, where’s the left fielder go??

There he is!!

But not for long, obviously. Manny was traded to the Dodgers the next afternoon and by the time I showed up at the park on Friday a fair number of people clearly had already moved on.

It was now time to usher in the Jason Bay era in Boston. Much like the fans who sell the shirts outside the stadium, these guys got a little creative as well. I thought this was the best sign in the park that night.

Of course I had to document the first time he stepped into the batter’s box at Fenway.

As well as the absolutely thunderous, prolonged ovation he was given by the sellout crowd.

It ended up being quite the debut for Mr. Bay with his new team and in his new state. He would go on to score both runs in a 2-1, 12-inning victory over the A’s on Friday night. The stadium erupted into pandemonium when he crossed home plate in the 12th. Still love that pole :-)

The fans immediately embraced him as one of their own and you could see the appreciation and sense of wonder as he looked around the stadium while being interviewed on the field after the game. The stands were still 90% full (definitely more packed than Yankee Stadium was in the 12th!) and it was clear he had never seen anything like that in his career.

-I will admit that I don’t know if other stadiums have traditional music they play after a victory but I did get to hear “New York, New York” in the Bronx and that was nothing like coming home to “Love That Dirty Water” and “Tessie” in Boston.

-Instead of the dense leagalese I found in San Francisco, Fenway's poem was much more to the point.

-I always look forward to the street drummers banging away on their various buckets outside Fenway after the game. I will say that Boston is not unique in this regard as there were other similar performers dotting the rest of the country but they’re all usually pretty good.

Low Points:

If any of you out there are still reading, I'm almost done, I promise. Fenway did have some things that disappointed me…

-For a fleeting moment I felt like I was back in Dodger stadium with its unfair class system. For my entire life, I cannot remember there being beer vendors walking the aisles of Fenway Park. At every other stadium there were guys who came around to deliver beer to you in your seat, as is common place at many sporting events. However, I was SHOCKED when I saw beer vendors in the lower box seats at Fenway, and only in the lower box seats at Fenway. Not only did I feel jipped, I feel like I’ve lied to anyone who’s read this blog. WTF, Fenway?! Thanks for being jerks.

-This picture speaks for itself…are you serious??

-During the Wednesday game I saw with Brandon there was a church choir who sang the national anthem. They were from Ireland and I don’t know if it was a joke or what but I can say, without hesitation, that it was absolutely the worst performance of the National Anthem I’ve ever heard in public. This group was TERRIBLE!

-Right after I get done lying to you about the beer vendors I have to own up to another mea culpa. I had ranted at various times about regions of the country calling Italian Ice by other names like “water ice” or “frozen lemonade.” Well, would you know it? Fenway had vendors walking about selling BOTH! Obviously I have no idea what I’m talking about and the last 4 months of my life have been a complete and utter waste.

No, just kidding :-)

-The Bank of America ATM inside the stadium was great to see but it was less great to see that it was out of order. Boo that.

-I felt bad for this guy (and the thousands of other people like him) who felt the need to cover up the back of his Ramirez Red Sox tee shirt. The girl in front of him clearly had no problem but this guy kept his white shirt on his back throughout the entire game. However, it was little match for the flash on my camera.

-The Fenway organist is quite the talented individual. I’m glad Fenway is one of the few parks in the country to still incorporate the traditional organ songs and sounds but when the guy starts playing Rihanna’s “Umbrella” I think there’s a line that has been crossed and I’m not sure we wanted to do that.

-The scoreboard displayed the words to the National Anthem sans punctuation. Once I saw it done right at a few other stadiums I think it should be required everywhere. “Oh say, does that star spangled banner yet wave?” is clearly a question and I want it displayed as such!

-The aforementioned scalpers and ticket prices definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

-It’s never fun to try and review a park but not be allowed to enter some of the coolest areas. I understand the reasoning behind it but it still was a low point of the experience.

-My trip is over :-( That’s the lowest point of all!!

Don’t worry, I’ll try to do a recap thing soon and post some other pictures that I promised I’d get to way back in the first week of May.

Overall Grade: A-

Game Stats:

Teams: Red Sox vs. Athletics
Final Score: 2-1 Red Sox
Extra Innings: 3
WP: Mike Timlin
LP: Alan Embree
Time: 3:50
Announced Attendance: 37,832 (103.6% full)
Ticket Price: $110.00 (Yes, more than double face value. Thanks a lot, scalper jerks)
Parking Price: N/A

Trip Stats:

Home team record: 22-8
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 10,702
Speeding Tickets: ZERO!
States Visited: 27
Countries Visited: 2
Districts of Columbia Visited: 1
Beds slept in: 33
Highest Gas PPG: $4.19 [$4.81 if you count Canada]
Next Stop: No more stops :-(
Favorite Park: Petco Park (Padres)

Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-
Dodgers: B+
Padres: A
Diamondbacks: B
Rangers: B-
Astros: B-
Blue Jays: C
Tigers: A-
Indians: B-
Reds: B+
Cardinals: B
Royals: B
Twins: B-
Brewers: A-
White Sox: B
Cubs: B+
Pirates: C+
Orioles: B
Phillies: A-
Nationals: B
Mets: C+
Yankees: B
Red Sox: A-

Update

No, I haven't forgotten about Fenway Park. In fact, I even went to a game already, I just haven't had time to turn my experience into wonderful prose yet and probably won't for another week or so. I'm packing up and getting ready to move to Villanova this week so just hang tight and I promise I'll get to friendly Fenway as soon as I can.

Regards,

Mgmt.