Gary BUTTERWORTH Online

If you know me, you probably know that I love sports stadiums.

You may also know that I haven’t attended a Major League Baseball game since 1993.  Yes, I have my own little one-man boycott going, thanks to the baseball strike, interleague play, stadium extortion economics, high ticket prices, the Expos fiasco, steriods, the new home run “champ,” etc. 

So, most of the baseball stadiums that I have visited have been minor league parks.  Which is fine by me!  I honestly don’t even miss MLB.

But there is one exception: I have always wanted to visit Fenway Park, and that just didn’t jive with my boycott.  As much as it pained me, I passed up a chance to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway with my mom and brother when we visited Boston in June 2001.

(They went to the game, while I went to see Blue Man Group that night in 2001.  It wasn’t a bad Plan B!)

Anyway, about a month ago I learned about “Futures at Fenway,” a minor-league double-header to be played the #1 ballpark on my hit-list. 

My brother made plans to attend with two of his friends, but, because of the situation with my grandmom, it wasn’t until the very last minute that I found out that I’d be able to go with them.  But it worked out in the end; my mom was able to watch my grandmom, so I was off to spend some time with something even older–Fenway Park!  ;-)

The Trip Up and the Hotel

My brother picked up his friends and then came and got me.  We were on the road by 9am on Friday morning.  Good thing we got an early start–the traffic and the weather were terrible!  What should have been a 5.5 hour trip took about 8 hours, without getting lost and with only one stop for 30 minutes.  The rain played a big part, but I-95 through Connecticut is just awful, and the Mass Pike wasn’t that great, either.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express-Cambridge, which we got for only $80/night by naming our own price on Priceline.com.  A real bargain, considering the rack rate was over $200/night!

I admit my hotel standards are fairly low, so this might not mean as much coming from me as it would from someone else, but I was really impressed with this place.  The room was fairly large and recently renovated.  There was a sign in the lobby advertising that all of the mattresses were replaced earlier this year, and I don’t think the other furnishings were any older; the chairs and carpet looked brand new.  Even though it was only rated as 2-star hotel, all of the rooms have refrigerators, microwaves, coffee pots, and ironing boards, all of which looked brand new.  Free wifi, too.  It was very comfortable.

The location was also pretty good.  The area around the hotel was on a drab (but still safe-feeling) highway next to a big suburban-style shopping center.  Fortunately, it was an easy 3 block walk to the Lechmere T-station (subway), and from there only about a 10 minute ride to central Boston.  I also walked to central Boston in about 35 minutes.  There was free parking at the hotel.

(This is one of the main T- subway stations; it was just a short ride from our hotel.)

The hotel also had one of the best free continental breakfasts I’ve ever seen–it had bacon and eggs!
The only complaint I had was that the elevators were pretty slow.

Around Boston

We had planned on going to tour the Sam Adams Brewery right after arriving, but the traffic delays meant we were too late for that, so we just walked around Boston the first night.

As I said, I had visited Boston once before, for just a few days in 2001.  I didn’t remember a heck of a lot about the city, aside from the fact that I really liked it.  Once I got off the T, I quickly remembered why I liked the city.  I can’t explain it, but it just has a really nice feel about it.
(I was also surprised that I remembered my way around the city fairly well.)

So, we just wandered around central Boston and Harvard Square in Cambridge, taking in some of the sites along the way, like

Quincy Market

the waterfront
 

Boston Common and some colonial-era buildings, like this church

the bar from the TV show Cheers

(that’s my brother, on the right, with his friend, Christian.  Yes, I stuck out from the rest of the group.)

Although I didn’t get any good pictures, we also walked around Harvard Square, which I thought was a really cool area.

I headed back to the hotel first, while my brother and his friends stayed out a little longer.  The next morning, we were up and out early to take the first tour of the Sam Adams brewery of the day.  It was a nice tour, about an hour long, with free samples.  My brother and his friends decided to hang around the brewery and then head back to the hotel; they’d meet me for the second baseball game.  Even though the tour meant I wasn’t there for the start of the first game, I still wantd to see as much of it as I could.  So, I said goodbye to them, hopped on the T, and then on the bus.

Then, it was off to Fenway!

FUTUERS AT FENWAY!

With the Boston Red Sox out of town for the weekend, Fenway Park was free on Saturday.  So, the idea was to schedule two games featuring Red Sox minor league players.  This gave the Boston-area fans a chance to see some the Red Sox of the future at Fenway at a reasonable price (my ticket was only $5!). 

This was the second year of “Futures at Fenway,” and while the first year’s even was slightly more of a success, this was a success in its own right.  Nearly 35,000 fans turned out to watch the two games.  They mostly seemed to be from the Boston area, but a fair amount travelled from all over the northeast for the rare opportunity to see minor league baseball at Fenway Park.

At 95 years old, Fenway Park is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium still in use.  Naturally, it is filled to the gills with history.  And beauty.   And atmosphere.

The experience starts before you even enter the stadium.  Yawkey was is closed off and incorporated into the concourse, so it is filled with baseball fans.

Inside, the main concourse feels comfortably lived-in.  People have been walking around and buying their hot dogs here for nearly a century!

 

And then you step out into the seating bowl, and wow!

Fenway is probably best known for the Green Monster (the big green wall in left field, above), but I thought the Pesky’s Pole in right field was even more interesting.

See, nowadays, stadiums are large-scale megaprojects.  95 years ago, stadium projects were certainly big, but they weren’t nearly of the same scale as of today.  They were placed on smaller parcels of land, and sometimes had to be built around pre-existing structures, like streets.  This meant stadiums, like Fenway, sometimes had odd dimensions.  The way the foul pole sits is striking, both because it provides a unique opportunity/challenge for batter, and also because it is a direct result of the streetscrape of a century ago.  That’s history.

In fact, everywhere you look is history.  The other foul pole is famous for Carlton Fisk’s famous home run.  The red seat is a link with Ted Williams.   Many of the seats are still the original wooden ones.  Heck, even the protective netting behind home plate has a claim to fame–this was the first park to have one.

Even the most banal things at Fenway are steeped in history.

But not all of Fenway is old. 

Up until 5 years or so ago, it looked like the whole park was about to be replaced.  Fortunately, Red Sox ownership decided that it would be better to modernize the old park than build a new one. 

Honestly, I had a hard time telling which features were original, and which were results of the modernization.  If you ask me, this is a good thing.  I love it when history and modernity can coexist.  “History” doesn’t have to imply “dead.”  Here, the modernizations may have even made the experience better (eg., the Monster Seats).

I think a lot of the right field deck is new.

That’s not to say Fenway is perfect. 
The selection at the concession stands is poor, and the prices are horrible.  Many of the seats are angled toward obscure parts of the playing field.  Many of the views of the playing field are obstructed by verticle support poles for the roof (although it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be).  And the infield seats aren’t exactly roomly (although, again, they are not nearly as bad as I had heard.  Also, why is it that this is such a common critique of older stadia, while older theatres are at least as cramped?  The theatres seem to get a free pass because of their history and beauty; why not the ballparks?).

That said, Fenway is a WONDERFUL place to watch a game.  Of the 126 stadiums I have now visited, Fenway may very well be my number 1.

Here is a good wrap-up of the event.

After the game, it was back to the hotel.  I went for a walk for a bit, mostly to scout out where I was meeting up with with a friend the next day (more on that later), but also to take in a little bit more of the city.  In a way, I felt bad that my only full day in town was spent mostly in one place.  But if any stadium ever deserved that much time, it’s Fenway.

Besides, I saw a lot on my previous visit, and I’m sure I’ll be back again one day.

Sunday

My old boss/friend from DC is in the Boston area now, so I met up with her on Sunday afternoon.  (Meanwhile, my brother had to replace a tire.)  She had some other friends and family members in town, so I comfortably re-assumed my familiar role as the token gora (white guy) and went on a cruise of the Charles River with her crew.  Although I wasn’t feeling well (too much sun the day before and a lack of sleep, I think), it was a great time nonetheless.  It’s always nice to spend some time to get caught up with old colleagues/friends, and the river cruise was a nice way to wrap up my trip.

The trip home was uneventful.  We took I-95 all the way down from Boston, which added about 15 miles to the trip, but allowed us to avoid the Mass Pike by cutting through Rhode Island.  We were back home about 6 hours after we left, and for once I was in bed before midnight.

I got a lot of sleep and was back to feeling 100% by yesterday.

All in all, it was a great trip.  It felt a little bit rushed, but that didn’t bother me as much as you’d think, mostly because I had already been to Boston.  Plus, I’m sure I’ll make it back someday.  It really is a great city, and not just because of Fenway!

Filed under: Baseball, Life, Posts with Pictures, Reviews, Sports, Stadiums, Travel