Opening Weekend Fenway Park
An earlier trip to Boston brought us to the doorstep of Fenway Park. We could all but imagine the atmosphere of a ball game there. We also knew at that time, that we would be back in about a month for Opening Weekend at Fenway Park when the St. Louis Cardinals came to town. Due to pure luck, this will be the third year in a row we have seen our team on “Opening Weekend” of whatever stadium we are at! That time has come, and the boys of summer are back! As we prepare to go behind enemy lines to explore Fenway Park, GO CARDS!
Mile: 60,999
Quote of the Blog: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” - Yogi Berra
Song of the Blog: “The Boys Are Back” - Dropkick Murphys
We were excited to head up to Boston for the game, because a new commuter train had just opened giving us the ability to drive 20 minutes away, and ride and subway straight to the stadium! This made our commute into the city a breeze. While boarding, we realized there were a lot of people getting onto the train for a protest that was taking place in Boston, which turned out to make things quite busy in the city throughout the day. When we arrived in South Station in Boston, we quickly headed down to the Subway to make our way towards the ballpark.
Our first stop was to head to Amity’s favorite coffee shop in Boston, Tatte Bakery & Cafe. There are a couple around the city, so we found one that was on the subway route to Fenway. This was in the Beacon Hill area of the city, which was a classic Boston neighborhood that has lots of colonial style buildings surrounded by cobble stone streets. When we got into the caffe, it was packed. We then realized that the protest was taking place in the park next to the coffee shop. We had to check it out a little bit. Unfortunately, it was starting to rain and the wind was quite cold too. So, we checked Boston Commons Park out a little bit before heading to the next activity.
Across the street from Boston Commons is Cheers. Yep, the bar that is based off the tv show “Cheers”. They had a replica show set that was just like the bar in the tv show. We scored bar seat right next to some people from St. Louis who were also in town to cheer on the Cardinals. We had a lot of fun chatting with them while enjoying a couple pre-game beers. They may have not known our names, but it was nice to know that you can walk into Cheers and always have some friends to talk to. Before leaving, we took some time to explore around the bar a little bit, and took some photos.
With a little over an hour before gametime, we headed back onto the subway and headed towards the ballpark. The subway was PACKED from all the people attending the protest. We felt like sardines in a tin can! Once we were there, the rain had picked up a little more and the outlook on the game started to change. We went from optimistically thinking there would be a game, to fully accepting that there was little-to-no chance this game was going to happen today. So we headed into a bar adjacent to the stadium to wait out the news. We found a spot called, Bill’s Bar & Lounge. I guess all the great ballparks have bars named after me across the street. We got some drinks and some food and waited out the inevitable news that the game was canceled. We knew this just meant, we were going to have to get back on the train tomorrow morning and head ship back up to Boston for a second effort at getting into Fenway Park for our first times.
The time between getting home and heading back to the train felt like nothing. The next morning, we gear back up in our Cardinals gear and headed back to the train station. The weather was forecasted to be hit and miss with rain and temps around 40 degrees, so we were dressed for anything. When we got out of the station in Boston, we were immediately hit with some rain. As we finished out walk to the stadium, things dried out and we were going to get to watch some baseball! Before we went inside Fenway, we had a couple drinks and some food at spot called, Game On. We joked that we were asked to sit downstairs, because of Amity’s Cardinal’s gear. This was a great pregame spot!
Walking into Fenway was a surreal moment. I always thought that I would be coming here for Yankees at Redsox, but coming in to cheer on the Cardinals is just as good! Fenway is a very classic ballpark. They have an interesting network of catwalks and hallways under the stands to allow fans to access the different areas of the stadium; similar to Wrigley. This must have just been the old way to get around not having a lot of space to work with. Once we got to our seats, we were very happy that they were under the overhang of the second deck of seats. This guarantee that we would stay dry if any weather came over.
It was a chilly ballgame. We heard one of the vendors say that it felt like a September or October game, not an early spring game. We miss the warmth and sunshine of spring baseball in Phoenix, but we are very happy to be back at an MLB game! After a couple innings, we took some time to walk around the stadium and check out the different areas of the ballpark. We went out to walk on top of the Green Monster, walked down behind Homeplate, and headed out to the area where the infamous red seat from Ty Cobbs longest home run in Fenway lives. With every corner there was some kind of history or memory for a game I watched on TV, which made the experience that much more exciting. One of the more interesting things we saw during the game were vendors with Clam Chowder and a Hot Dog vendor who built your hot dog right in front of you. Very New England of them!
The game was very close all the way to the end. At one point, the Cardinals were up a couple runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, and their pitcher blew it. He walked the bases loaded and then proceeded to allow the game to get tied up. I did my best to hold the Yankee’s fan inside me, but this inning got the best of me. The game eventually went to extra inning and the Redsox won on a walk-off hit. So sad to see the Cardinals blow it and give the Sox the win. We still had a blast, and we can now say that we have been to Fenway Park. Even if it took us two days, several train rides in and out of Boston and the Redsox won…
We headed down to the closest subway station, and made our way back to Wareham. What we had planned to be a single day event in Boston, turned into a whole weekend adventure. We now know that we have the subway system in Boston down. We both know it’s going to be a rough year of the St. Louis Cardinals, but a true fan still shows up when you have the chance! We might not make it back to Fenway again during this contract, but we will watch more baseball this year! We have the Cape Cod Summer League to look forward to, and I’m hoping we find a way to see another game or two at our future contract location. Now that we have fulfilled our Boston baseball needs, can we please get some warm weather?!? Live Rad Y’all’s!
P.S. REDSOX SUCK!!! GO YANKEES!!!