The Fenway Park Experience

Yo La Tengo

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 21, 2005
926
Watched the Phillies v. Pirates in Philadelphia last Saturday. A clobbah by Schwabba, a Trea Turner slide across home plate, and watching Oneil Cruz was great, including an opposite field homer. Plus a walkoff by Castellanos after being heavily booed earlier in the game.

A couple of things stuck out:
  • The Philly subway is in rough shape but it was an easy ride to the park. However, the 1/2 +/- mile walk from the subway to the field, through endless acres of parking lots, is absolutely soulless.
  • Tickets were easy to come by and relatively cheap. Same annoying card-only policy for purchases within the stadium. Food and beer were ridiculously expensive ($13 for a small metal bottle/can of Miller Lite).
  • Unopened food/water was allowed in. Is that the rule at Fenway these days? The no-backpack policy is equally annoying, considering you have to bring a full set of outerwear for a spring game, with temps falling somewhere between 40-80 degrees.
  • The field is nice with good sight-lines (we sat close to the LF foul line). The concourse feels pretty generic but the Liberty Bell in CF is legit cool. Tons of scoreboards with all kinds of stats. We couldn't see the big board in LF which made it hard to track balls/strikes/outs since the other scoreboards switch between graphics every pitch, with lots of flashing lights in an effort to engage fans.
  • The artificial noise is insane. LOUD music between every pitch. Completely generic sound effects that are heard at every game around the country. Even worse, lots of "NOISENOISENOISE" "Let's Make Some Noise" and "Noise Meter" graphics on the scoreboards every time a Phillies pitcher got to 2 strikes and multiple times an inning. It was autism awareness day which made the crazy noise seem particularly inhumane, but most of the kids had headphones on.
  • Overall, the lack of any ambiance or activity outside the ballpark was jarring but once inside it was a very similar ballpark experience to my recent visits to Cincinatti, Washington, DC, and Houston.

EDIT- my takeaway is that it was nice to have a larger seat (I am tall/wide) but I preferred every other aspect of Fenway. I did enjoy the fans singing Stott's walk up music and I generally like the public singing at sporting events vibe, which made wish there was more of that when Sox batters walk up to the plate. Player specific music (another example is the trumpet intro for the Mets' closer Diaz) that does not happen between pitches seems like the best of both worlds. Not generic and not a distraction from the game. A simple test would be: does this graphic/sound effect have anything to do with Boston or the Red Sox? If not, can it.
 
Last edited:

Sin Duda

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
848
(B)Austin Texas
Watched the Phillies v. Pirates in Philadelphia last Saturday. A clobbah by Schwabba, a Trea Turner slide across home plate, and watching Oneil Cruz was great, including an opposite field homer. Plus a walkoff by Castellanos after being heavily booed earlier in the game.

A couple of things stuck out:
  • The Philly subway is in rough shape but it was an easy ride to the park. However, the 1/2 +/- mile walk from the subway to the field, through endless acres of parking lots, is absolutely soulless.
  • Tickets were easy to come by and relatively cheap. Same annoying card-only policy for purchases within the stadium. Food and beer were ridiculously expensive ($13 for a small metal bottle/can of Miller Lite).
  • Unopened food/water was allowed in. Is that the rule at Fenway these days? The no-backpack policy is equally annoying, considering you have to bring a full set of outerwear for a spring game, with temps falling somewhere between 40-80 degrees.
  • The field is nice with good sight-lines (we sat close to the LF foul line). The concourse feels pretty generic but the Liberty Bell in CF is legit cool. Tons of scoreboards with all kinds of stats. We couldn't see the big board in LF which made it hard to track balls/strikes/outs since the other scoreboards switch between graphics every pitch, with lots of flashing lights in an effort to engage fans.
  • The artificial noise is insane. LOUD music between every pitch. Plus lots of "NOISENOISENOISE" "Let's Make Some Noise" and "Noise Meter" graphics on the scoreboards every time a Phillies pitcher got to 2 strikes and multiple times an inning. It was autism awareness day which made the crazy noise seem particularly inhumane, but most of the kids had headphones on.
  • Overall, the lack of any ambiance or activity outside the ballpark was jarring but once inside it was a very similar ballpark experience to my recent visits to Cincinatti, Washington, DC, and Houston.
Thanks for the scouting report, YLT! I love these "What other stadium experiences are like" reports.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
73,639
Jersey Street Store has them for $40 on the website, but no Casas. I'd imagine they've got all of them at the store across the street.
Thank you but only seeing current player jersey tshirts as Yoshida and Story for that $40 price. At both of the A gate and D gate B&M's, they were $60. Maybe they use the online store as the clearance rack (Masa-suckage, Story-injured) or something.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,993
Kernersville, NC
Thank you but only seeing current player jersey tshirts as Yoshida and Story for that $40 price. At both of the A gate and D gate B&M's, they were $60. Maybe they use the online store as the clearance rack (Masa-suckage, Story-injured) or something.
Interesting. I assumed the brick and mortar Jersey Street Store across the street from the park would have the same prices as they do online. They used to, but it's been several years since I was at Fenway.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,993
Kernersville, NC

LoweTek

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
May 30, 2005
2,188
Central Florida
I went to a White Sox game in Chicago on the night of OJ's white Bronco chase in 1994. The guy I went with, a White Sox season ticket holder, had never caught a foul ball in his life until, the night before, he caught two fouls balls in the same Robin Ventura at bat.
I got two in one game in the KC dugout seats. It was against Toronto. I gave one to a guy in my group as an award. I still have the other one in my display case. Over the years I got foul balls at a Winter Haven Spring training game, a AA game, a AAA game and a D1 college baseball game. At the college and AA games I got multiples. The one I got at the AAA and all the multiples at AA and the college game, I gave them all to kids who were around me.