Day 191 - Fenway Fun

After another night of very little sleep we both made a half-hearted attempt to get up only to both crash back out in bed and awake at lunch time! Disgruntled we’d now slept in we both quickly dressed and went to explore, though before we left Danny repositioned the fans. He propped open the old fashioned slide-up window with a brick and his umbrella and then put both fans side by side in the open window in an experiment to see if they would bring in any cooler air from outside. We left them on a slow speed setting as we went out.

A 30 minute or so walk brought us to “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark” and we stopped a minute or two to get our bearings and take in the place. The stadium is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium currently in use and is one of the best known sports venues in the states. Due to its small seating capacity and massive fan base this place has sold out every home game since May 15^th 2003! We walked around the whole stadium which brought us back around to the ticket office for future games and tours. We didn’t want to queue for a couple of hours to get a ticket later on for the game but we thought we’d do the next best thing and get a tour. We agreed that if the tours were sold out then we’d just grin and bear it to get a ticket for tonight’s match. All the tours bar one were sold out and so we went with that one. This tour happened to be the “Batters’ Practice Tour” and cost a few dollars more than the standard ones L Oh well.

At 16:00 we gathered with a large crowd of others and got our wristbands before making our way through a little security check to get into the park itself. Our guide gave us some history of the place as we went and then we all had our photos taken by the field before heading on over to the oldest seats in the ground in the grandstand section. We got some more history of the stadium and its players before we were then allowed to go and spend time watching the pre-match practice of the Sox’s pitchers, batters and fielders from the seats atop the famous Green Monster. The monster’s wall is completely covered in dents from countless balls that have head its way. The wall was basically set up to prevent balls heading in this direction from breaking businesses windows outside the stadium but more importantly to stop freeloaders watching the game from their apartments! We all spent the rest of the time up here as we watched the practicing down below. A few of the batters sent multiple balls our way and a few lucky members of the group managed to catch them. Most of the group were big fans and had brought along their gloves to help them catch a ball but one young lad caught a screamer bare handed; he was rubbing and shaking his hands for some time afterwards!

It was all over too soon and we were back on the streets that were now beginning to swell with the night’s spectators and street vendors. The rising atmosphere got us in the mood to watch a game though the smells of all the foods was even more tempting. Instead we walked back towards the hotel, grabbing a couple of sandwiches for the very reasonable sum of $6 from the local Dunkin’ Doughnuts.

We were both hugely relieved when we opened the door to the room and were greeted with a perfectly cool room. Danny was impressed with himself and so there the fans will remain for the night.

After our tea we tried to sort some of the plans for tomorrow as we have a lot of public transport to get to finally reach our destination in Montreal, Canada.