Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 30, 2004
First Time at Fenway

I attended last night's game with my old friend Jim Storer and two of his New Haven cohorts, Ken Papa and Dave Spiro. I've known Ken since Jim's days at UConn Law School, but Dave I just met recently. Last night was Dave's first visit to Fenway. He really loved the park. His first reaction to seeing the Green Monster was "Bucky Dent." He found that the park had a certain mystique, that it smelled of baseball. He loved long ramps leading to the seats and the support columns of a bygone era of stadium design. He was truly impressed with the fans. In the eighth inning of a blow out, everyone was still in his or her seat. I think Fenway has a new fan.

The Red Sox pitching was most impressive yesterday. Everyone threw strikes. Kim, Wakefield, Williamson, Embree, Timlin and Foulke all seemed to be of the same mindset; let's go after these hitters. Even Manny Ramirez is playing like a man on a mission. And the fans love it. I used to get the feeling that there was an arms length relationship between the Red Sox and the fans, but in the two games I attended yesterday, I felt like there was a giant mutual hug, as if the fans the players were one. That's very different and very good.

I also want to commend the crowd before game 1. As I recorded here:


Someone did a very poor job of planning the logistics of this day.

It took me about 35 minutes in line once I got to the ballpark to get my tickets. The cause appeared to be a computer problem. But the crowd at Window 1 never got unruly. People waited patiently, and even started self organizing. There were four windows for tickets, based on the first letter of your last name. As people realized this, they would let others move in and out to get to the correct queue. No one pressed, no one cut. Finally (after I got my tickets, of course), the Red Sox just let everyone in. They probably should have done that at 1:15.


Posted by David Pinto at 02:27 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)