Visiting Fenway Park

My son and I caught a game at Fenway Park while we were on our Boston trip. The Red Sox played the Philadelphia Phillies in their second home game. The first game went into extra innings the night before with the Sox victorious. We wondered what our game would be like.

The stadium has a lot of stuff built up around it, especially overpriced parking, food, and souvenirs. I couldn't believe one sign that said parking was forty-five dollars!

Walking in to the stadium

By Gate D, our entrance

Our seats were up in the bleachers, with almost a great view of the field. We were under the upper deck, which turned out to be handy when it rained later. But the structural support was in just the wrong spot for us.

View from our seats--great except for the pitching mound!

Unobstructed outfield view

The park is the oldest baseball park in America and one of the more iconic. A famous feature is the Green Monster, the extra-tall wall in left field that prevents many big hits from becoming home runs (which happened at least three times during our game). 

The famous Green Monster

I was surprised to see that the stats board at the bottom of the Green Monster is still run with someone changing the numbers on panels. Occasionally a small window would open and we could see someone watching the game from inside the wall.

Up and to the right of the Green Monster is a more typical video scoreboard. It was also surprising because they tried to make it look like an old-fashioned wooden display.

The electronic scoreboard

Closeup with the wooden graphics (the faces kinda blow the effect)

We made it in time for the National Anthem and the first pitch. The game started off well, with the Red Sox getting three outs in rapid succession.

Beginning of the game

The game was a slow battle with a few scores here and there. The game was always very close. During the third inning, we bought some Fenway Franks as a little extra dinner and a chance to have the true ballpark experience. 

Footlong Fenway Frank

My son enjoying the frank while enjoying the game

In between innings, one of the tributes was to the ballpark workers who had the highest customer satisfaction ratings.

Ballpark heroes

The true heroes were the players, who slugged it out as the evening went on. The score was tied by the ninth inning and they went on to extra innings with rain on and off. 

My camera didn't catch the rain

We stayed through the eleventh inning (about 11:15 at night) and then took a cab home. The Sox were able to score in the twelfth to clinch the game, 4-3. It was a lot of fun and we were happy even if we didn't stay to the happy end.