Fenway Park
For Red Sox fans, Fenway truly is a shrine. Currently, it is the oldest park in Major League Baseball. 100 years young this year, it possesses a certain charm that you just don’t get at most of the newer ballparks. Fenway is small, holding less than 38,000 fans, while some of the larger parks, such as the new Yankee Stadium, hold more than 50,000 fans.
The seats in the stands are small, and if you’re more than 6 feet tall, your knees will rub against the seat in front of you for most of the game. There are plenty of seats with obstructed views, which means you’ll have to crane your neck around a steel pole in front of you to see, much of the action.
Like most sports venues, Fenway has a high-end video display, but it’s one of the few parks that still maintains an old fashioned manual scoreboard. There is actually someone sitting just inside the left field wall for the entire game, replacing wooden scorecards as the score changes each inning. During a long double-header in August, that’s gotta be one of the hottest jobs ever.
In recent years, team ownership has invested millions of dollars in upgrades. Now, we have “Green Monster seats”, where fans can sit perched above the left field wall, the Green Monster, while drinking beers at a pub style table. Or you can sit in similar seating beyond the right field bleachers.
A night game at Fenway Park
Seeing a game at Fenway is an experience everyone should have. The pre-game festivities on Yawkey Way, outside the park are a bit like a carnival midway. There are no carnival barkers trying to get you to hit targets with a slightly crooked BB guns, but there are plenty of folks hawking souvenirs, popcorn, beer, and sausage….hmmm smells good!
Inside the park, make sure you pay attention to the game, true Red Sox fans have little patience for the folks chatting on their cell phones when Josh Beckett is working on a no-hitter. However, since baseball is filled with pitching changes, inning changes, 7th-inning stretches, and conferences on the mound, there is still plenty of time for conversation during the game.
