Professional Roommate: Green Monsters and the Lone Red Seat

My dream to visit every single MLB baseball stadium leapt onto my Bucket List when I was a child. I watched the Yankees and Mets play on TV, and just wanted to hear a homerun pop off of the bat and shoot into the stands.

Happily, I’ve been able to visit both Camden Yards, to see the Yankees play the Orioles and both the old, and the new, Yankee Stadiums. Now, as a Yankees fan, I’ve also seen Fenway and (surprisingly) haven’t spontaneously combust into hellfire.

The stadium is tucked away in the middle of Boston. Fenway is built onto a natural hill, so it blends into the road, making the highest seats look maybe 2 stories high.

We heard that the Red Sox were going to play Sunday afternoon, so we rushed to get into the first tour.

The tour began and I became snap-happy. There’s so much to see, from the old banners to the giant Budweiser sign, and the Green Monster looming in left field. Fenway is one of the oldest stadiums in the country, with Wrigley taking the top spot. However, the field is beautiful and although Fenway is rather small, it would be worth it to see a game here.

The guide directed our attention to the score board, indicating that 1 or 2 people have to manually fill in the numbers for the Boston game and every single game being played. During commercials breaks they have to run out that tiny door and stand in front of the sign to place number cards, by hand.

I can just imagine a man running around with handfuls of green numbers, frantically filling in scores.

Lucky for me, we landed the special tour that takes you up into the Green Monster and gets a picture with the very creepy mascot, Wally the Green Monster.

Wally did scare me a little bit. He looks like an odd combination of Grover and Oscar the Grouch. I wish the Red Sox mascot was a giant, dirty, red gym sock instead of Green Grover.

Obligatory family photo

Yes, I am a giant. It’s well known throughout the land.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a diehard Yankees fan. (See 1^st paragraph)

So I couldn’t help but show my complete disgust to the team and honor to our rivalry by throwing a big ‘ol thumbs down.

All jokes aside, Fenway Park holds a huge amount of history. The best part is that almost all of the history is visible. My favorite story was of the Lone Red Seat. Around 502 feet away from home plate, in right field, is one red seat in a sea of pine green.

This seat signifies the location of the longest home run ever hit at Fenway. Ted Williams launched the ball 502 feet (it could have gone 530 feet, if it was unobstructed), in 1946. The ball hit a man on the head, breaking his straw hat, and bounced farther back into the stands. Today, Fenway makes sure that this seat cannot be bought as a season ticket, this way anybody has a chance to sit in this historical spot.

The best part of the whole tour was the view from the Green Monster, I mean look at the field!!

We were told the Green Monster seats originally sold for cheap, because they were seen as “bad” seating. Fans were clamoring to get tickets. Surprised owners realized the commodity and made sure the tickets are now only acquired through a lottery. There are only about

The view is amazing, I can understand why people crave these seats.

Avery was pretty impressed with the view of her dad instead of the field, but what can you do?

It was cool to see the players come out to warm up. I guess an afternoon game doesn’t stop for a tour.

There they all are, far away from me . . . of course.

Our tour ended, we were (quickly) escorted out of the stadium as fans began to stream in. Yawkee Way began to smell of hot dogs, melted cheese, and other delicious, artery clogging, hot foods.