Fenway Ready for Home Opener
Apr 3rd, 2008 BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox are getting Fenway Park ready for next week's home opener, when almost 1,000 more fans will be able to squeeze through the gates of baseball's oldest and smallest park.
The defending World Series champions play their first home game of the season Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers.
The seventh year of renovations are almost complete. New this year is a section of upper deck seats in left field, a kitchen for the Red Sox clubhouse and a stairway down the third base line to help fans get in and out of the park.
Red Sox president Larry Lucchino says with the new Yankees Stadium set to open in 2009, Boston needs to work even harder to keep up with "the bullet train in the Bronx."
A thousand more seats. This will mean hundreds more cars driven by clueless suburbanites in endless circles around the greater Fenway area, searching fruitlessly for parking, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF RUSH HOUR. When those of us who are unfortunate enough to have to drive through this area to get home, are trying to commute back from work. Fun times.
6 comments:
And I remind myself again why I am glad I left a truly big city for Boise!
What kills me is that these people even WANT to drive to the games. You pay a fortune for parking, which is not always even that close to the ballpark. And it literally snarls up the entire greater Boston area from around 4:30 to 7:30 on nights when the games begin around 7.
I've said it before and I will say it again (not that anyone seems to listen to me!) but the Red Sox, with all their money, should build themselves a new, modern stadium somewhere out in the hinterlands where the Patriots play. Then they should make Fenway into the "museum of Red Sox history," which they could charge people an arm and a leg to get in to, and people would pay it. And then I would not have to have my commute screwed up for six solid months out of the year!
Hey Fraulein- are you a big sports fan? People want to know...
Heh heh...it's true that I don't care about sports (Tony, is that you?)
No, that wasn't Tony -- but this is!
Now, as a Yankee fan and urbanist, as much as I love complaining about Red Sox fans and suburban drivers/yahoos, I must respectfully argue that you need to just deal.
Yeah, it's a big pain, and there are lots of things that could and should be done to alleviate parts of it.
But ultimately it's the price you (we) pay for living in the big city, with all its charms. The alternative is ... well, you know: living in the suburbs like (and with) all those yahoos. Much worse than any traffic jam, if you ask me.
As for the role of the Red Sox, while I'm sure they could do more to help you out, it's worth remembering that Fenway Park opened on the day news of the sinking of the Titanic first reached Boston, so it's not like you or other more recent arrivals were unaware of the whole recurring summer crowd thing.
As for building a big ugly new stadium out in the suburbs, well, that's exactly the sort of anti-urban development that creates more suburban yahoos, who then drive everywhere, and so on and so on.
Now, if you want to talk about building more and better subsidized mass transit to move people in and out of cities with less fuss and muss and pollution and road traffic, that's the real ticket.
I know, I know -- Fenway was here long before me. As you know, Squid, I do like to bitch... :) But it seems to me the Red Sox, with all their money, could maybe consider running some kind of reasonably-priced bus service to bring people from the suburbs out here for games. The T is completely overloaded, given that Boston has the oldest subway system in the country. So while you might think that would be the answer, until they start running more trains on this creaky old system, that ain't it either. And obviously I agree that we need more and better mass transit options around here, and all across the country for that matter.
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