![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
He Thinks He'll Go To Boston (Part 2)
Sep. 4th, 2006 11:53 pmI've been writing this for days...and something was keeping me from finishing, after travel blues, I suppose, but I regained some inspiration watching Fever Pitch - the movie about the Boston Red Sox fan tonight. It brought back a lot of the feelings I have for Boston.
On Monday I had only one real objective, go see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I had the concierge at work find the ticket for me, and I must say that she did a great job. I paid about twice the original value for it, and seeing that the game had been sold out prior to the beginning of the season, that was a pretty good price. There were several times during my trip that people were surprised that I even got a ticket, including the guy who sat next to me, who was a longtime fan.
I jumped onto the T line and went out to the nearest stop, crossed over the Mass Pike (with it’s Pilgrim hat logo), and stepped into the neighborhood which was crowded with people, some Yankee fans, many Red Sox hopefuls, all wondering if the Sox could stave off a five-game sweep. There were plenty of food venders and musicians in the street. I walked around the entire perimeter and entered under the banner on Yawkey Way, the same entrance now immortalized in that picture of Owen and Dave kissing.
The Red Sox have taken over the street with food vendors and a store, so no longer do you have to enter in the small gates that are actually part of the building. They make it a great street party atmosphere there with people talking and eating. I grabbed a pizza slice. I never got around to eating a Fenway Frank. I went into the stadium, down into the small concourse that was actually named the Big Concourse. Given the food and restroom areas I’ve seen in other stadiums (except for tiny Wrigley Field) this was like stepping into a prairie dog’s hole. The bathrooms were pretty much as advertised, cramped, for sure, but they had individual urinals…not the troughs as some had said.
I then went to find my seat. I knew it was out in right field, and at first I thought it was located on the upper deck, but once I went through the walkway and out into the bowl, there I was, just 20 rows up from the field. The seat was amazing, and luckily on the aisle, so I only had to hold one arm over my body and cross my legs to stay in it. People kept walking up and down the aisle during all parts of the game, but luckily it was on the right side of me and didn’t disrupt my view of the game. I looked right over to the famed “Green Monster” in left field, now decked out with seats of it’s own, which looks very strange when you’ve seen the stadium for so many years on TV. My seat was plastic, which I was glad for when after the game I looked up another couple of rows and saw that the seats were even smaller and made of wood. Old wood. I’ll have to thank the concierge again for that.
A highlight of the event was seeing the beefy David Wells warm up in right field. He threw a pretty good game, too, but alas, the Red Sox lost the game 2-1 and the Yankees swept the five-game series. It was a pretty bad blow for Red Sox Nation, and pretty much dropped them out of the playoff hunt this year. The fans held on to hope for the entire game…though there were some Yankees fans off in the bleachers who got rowdy and were kicked out of the stadium.
Sitting next to me was a retired man from Florida who was formerly a native of the area. He had brought his son to the stadium, and his wife, daughter and granddaughter had seats in another area, as they couldn’t get tickets all together. We got to talking about the Sox and the stadium, and it sounded like he had seen a lot of games here. He lamented that he used to get bleacher seats for $2 and beer for 50 cents. He was happy to talk about the bygone eras and talk about seeing Ted Williams in his later years of his career. That’s one of the unique parts of Baseball, and it’s great to find someone like that to talk to in such a storied place…and we all booed Johnny Damon together.
After the game I tried with much futility to find the “Big Papi” shirt that I saw in the stadium, but it wasn’t something the official store carried. Then I decided to walk back in the rough direction of the hotel. A false sense of distance had taken over when over the weekend I was able to easily walk from Long Warf to the Back Bay, or when we had quickly circled the city by car. It was different coming from Fenway. First you have to circle around the Back Bay Fens, then go through the Christian Science Center and Copley Square into the Back Bay. From there I chose to go up to the Charles River Esplanade. By the time I reached the Hatch Shell, my legs were really hurting, and it was still a ways to the nearest T stop.
( More, non Red Sox memories behind the cut )
On Monday I had only one real objective, go see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I had the concierge at work find the ticket for me, and I must say that she did a great job. I paid about twice the original value for it, and seeing that the game had been sold out prior to the beginning of the season, that was a pretty good price. There were several times during my trip that people were surprised that I even got a ticket, including the guy who sat next to me, who was a longtime fan.
I jumped onto the T line and went out to the nearest stop, crossed over the Mass Pike (with it’s Pilgrim hat logo), and stepped into the neighborhood which was crowded with people, some Yankee fans, many Red Sox hopefuls, all wondering if the Sox could stave off a five-game sweep. There were plenty of food venders and musicians in the street. I walked around the entire perimeter and entered under the banner on Yawkey Way, the same entrance now immortalized in that picture of Owen and Dave kissing.
The Red Sox have taken over the street with food vendors and a store, so no longer do you have to enter in the small gates that are actually part of the building. They make it a great street party atmosphere there with people talking and eating. I grabbed a pizza slice. I never got around to eating a Fenway Frank. I went into the stadium, down into the small concourse that was actually named the Big Concourse. Given the food and restroom areas I’ve seen in other stadiums (except for tiny Wrigley Field) this was like stepping into a prairie dog’s hole. The bathrooms were pretty much as advertised, cramped, for sure, but they had individual urinals…not the troughs as some had said.
I then went to find my seat. I knew it was out in right field, and at first I thought it was located on the upper deck, but once I went through the walkway and out into the bowl, there I was, just 20 rows up from the field. The seat was amazing, and luckily on the aisle, so I only had to hold one arm over my body and cross my legs to stay in it. People kept walking up and down the aisle during all parts of the game, but luckily it was on the right side of me and didn’t disrupt my view of the game. I looked right over to the famed “Green Monster” in left field, now decked out with seats of it’s own, which looks very strange when you’ve seen the stadium for so many years on TV. My seat was plastic, which I was glad for when after the game I looked up another couple of rows and saw that the seats were even smaller and made of wood. Old wood. I’ll have to thank the concierge again for that.
A highlight of the event was seeing the beefy David Wells warm up in right field. He threw a pretty good game, too, but alas, the Red Sox lost the game 2-1 and the Yankees swept the five-game series. It was a pretty bad blow for Red Sox Nation, and pretty much dropped them out of the playoff hunt this year. The fans held on to hope for the entire game…though there were some Yankees fans off in the bleachers who got rowdy and were kicked out of the stadium.
Sitting next to me was a retired man from Florida who was formerly a native of the area. He had brought his son to the stadium, and his wife, daughter and granddaughter had seats in another area, as they couldn’t get tickets all together. We got to talking about the Sox and the stadium, and it sounded like he had seen a lot of games here. He lamented that he used to get bleacher seats for $2 and beer for 50 cents. He was happy to talk about the bygone eras and talk about seeing Ted Williams in his later years of his career. That’s one of the unique parts of Baseball, and it’s great to find someone like that to talk to in such a storied place…and we all booed Johnny Damon together.
After the game I tried with much futility to find the “Big Papi” shirt that I saw in the stadium, but it wasn’t something the official store carried. Then I decided to walk back in the rough direction of the hotel. A false sense of distance had taken over when over the weekend I was able to easily walk from Long Warf to the Back Bay, or when we had quickly circled the city by car. It was different coming from Fenway. First you have to circle around the Back Bay Fens, then go through the Christian Science Center and Copley Square into the Back Bay. From there I chose to go up to the Charles River Esplanade. By the time I reached the Hatch Shell, my legs were really hurting, and it was still a ways to the nearest T stop.
( More, non Red Sox memories behind the cut )
