Behind Enemy Lines – Fenway Park

I don't want to spend too much time on this.  Walking into Boston's green stadium decked out in O's gear made me feel as awkward as Steve Urkel walking into a Ku Klux Klan meeting.  My orange and black clashed against everyone else's scarlet shirts.  Sox fans sneered and snorted as they walked past.  The place was packed.  Every street, corridor, and walkway had people streaming through, yet my handful of buddies and I were alone as Orioles fans.  If you want an objective analysis of Fenway, then go elsewhere.  I was a leper in Boston.

I had wanted to get to an O's/Red Sox game all summer because I had been living in Vermont for several months.  Some friends and I were free that weekend and decided to catch a game.  I searched for tickets for a while, and the cheapest we could come up with were $65 a piece.  If you show up to Camden Yards with 65 bucks, you are treated like royalty and seated behind home plate.  If you go to PNC Park with $65, I'm pretty sure they erect a granite statue of you and let you manage the team for the game.  Not so at Fenway Park.  In Boston, 65 bones gets you a 13 inch wide folding chair, 200 rows back in right field that makes your last American Airlines seat seem like a luxurious throne.  So, before the game, I met the ticket guy in a nearby McDonalds.  He had rolls of tickets and cash, a laptop, and some fries tucked away in the corner of the busy restaurant.  I handed him way too much money, he handed me way too crappy of tickets, and I left.

My buddies and I walked into the stadium via Yawkey Way as an orange freak show for the coarse Bostonians.  We entered a corridor that was a century old, it was narrow and uneven.  We were lost, but we wound around towards our seats somehow, well beyond the right field fence, several miles from the Pesky pole.  

 Right away I was struck by how short left field was and how enormous the Green Monster appeared in the outfield.  It was ridiculous, and at the time I commented that from our seats the field looked to be the size of a Little League park rather than a MLB stadium.  It is 302 feet to the Pesky pole, and 310 feet to the Green Monster.  All stadiums built after 1958 are required to have foul lines at least 325 feet.  Sox fans are lucky they have a geezer of a ballpark, otherwise its dimensions would be illegal.

My grade for the stadium is going to be low.  Incredibly expensive parking, absurd ticket prices, cramped seats, laughable dimensions, and the entire complex has the same sickly green color.  Sox fans gush about the unique old-timey beauty of the park.  The hype this place gets is nauseating.  I'll give the park 5 points just because it's historical: 5/15.

As for the food...well we were broke after buying the tickets and didn't eat anything at the park.  I used a water fountain outside of the men's room and had a tart, metallic taste in my mouth from it: 0/5.

Lastly, the fans.  Would you be surprised to hear that Red Sox fans were loud and uncouth, and spoke as though English was a second language behind IFAS, which of course stands for Irish Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?  Of course not.  Prior to the game I was treated with a haughty disdain typical of the historically challenged fan who has blocked out all baseball memories before 2004.  During the game, the local populace seemed perturbed that they were stuck near the only O's fan in the stadium.  I was not overly boisterous, but I did leap up and yell in the second when we ripped a screamer over the Green Monster.  Fans around me growled and told me to sit down.  Not in the haha-we're-fans-of-opposing-teams-so-we're-gonna-rip-on-eachother sort of way, but the I-hate-myself-and-in-order-to-make-my-life-bearable-I-have-to-drag-you-below-me sort of way.

Then, in the bottom of the second, our pitcher had a stroke and forgot how to throw a baseball and gave up the customary seven runs.  This made the Massholes cackle like they were back in middle school giving the nerdy kid a swirly.  I never heard anyone talk about baseball.  They would holler and yell when Boston scored, but besides that people didn't seem very engaged with what was going on.  I wondered if many of them could name every player on the Sox' lineup.  Of course when the headliners came up they would bellow – Fat Papi and Youk made their eyes roll back in their heads and their tongues loll to the side of their mouths.  After the game ended with the embarrassing score of 12-1, my friends and I sheepishly made our way out of the park.  A lady spotted my Ripken jersey and approached me in the first humane act I had experienced while there.  "Sorry we beat you so bad, it's just your team is really horrible."

I didn't think of anything to say besides "thanks", and we exited the old, green stadium.

That one lady earned the Red Sox fans a point: 1/10.

The overall score that Fenway earned in our ballpark ranking: 6/30.  The next lowest score belongs to Citi Field, with a 23/30.  As an Orioles fan, that's my take on the Boston Red Sox experience.  You can call me Shepard Smith, because this right here was Fair and Balanced.

Suck it, Sox.

Turner Field – Home of the Atlanta Braves

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for the support I felt while I was incarcerated by the Devils to the North.  I have since escaped their clutches and plan on keeping a low profile, using gorilla tactics to frustrate the enemy.  During my continual journeys, trying to keep a step ahead of the antagonists, I recently found myself driving from the Gulf of Mexico to the metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia.  The Orioles had a rare interleague series with the Braves, and Mark convinced me that for the sake of The Bastards, I had to make the trip.

I arrived at Turner Field about an hour before the start of the game on the 1st of July, after driving six hours.  Because of my unfamiliarity with the area, I bit the bullet and overpaid to park near the stadium, costing me 10 shekels.  I walked across the street to the main gate, occasionally high-fiving a rare O's fan along the way.  The stadium looked new and clean; I wandered into the ticket line.  A ticketing employee announced that military personnel would receive free admission and a half-priced ticket for a guest, and asked for service members to have their IDs out.  The group of college girls behind me noticed that I grasped my ID, and one of the buzzed coeds exclaimed, "Oh, you're in the military?  I'm gonna be your date, okay?"  She was obviously impressed by my sacrifice for freedom; the prospect of a half-off ticket hadn't entered her mind.  I turned, and the blonde sported a Braves t-shirt knotted to display her midriff and held a Miller Lite in a red Braves koozie.  Upon viewing the supporter of the evening's adversary, my eyes glazed over in disinterest and my face puckered sourly as I shifted to ignore the annoyance.  My lovely fiance would have been proud.

After I received my free ticket (valued at $18), my opinion of the venue brightened as I made my way to my seat.  You can see the view from where I sat, there didn't seem to be a bad seat in the house.  

The experience definitely had a southern feel to it.  The Braves fans were friendly and considerate; they had no reason to dislike a Baltimore Orioles fan.  The companies that advertized were regionally based, with Chick-fil-a, Delta Airlines, and Coca Cola adding to the southern atmosphere.  Even with the Atlanta skyline in the background, Turner Field had a homey feel that made watching the game comfortable and familiar.  I was slightly disappointed by the complete newness of the park, and while there are references to historical Braves players and teams, I expected that a proud franchise like Atlanta would emphasize their past more.  The stadium was fun and had an amusement park feel, but it wasn't very classical or retro.  Perhaps I'm spoiled because Camden Yards is the ultimate and original retro stadium.  Based on Mark's scale, I would give Turner Field a 12.5/15.  

I sat through three scoreless innings as Jeremy "Stormin' Mormon" Guthrie and Jair (Yes, Jair) Jurrjens entered into a pitcher's duel.  The lady next to me commented that JJ Hardy had been a good player for the Brewers years ago, and it seemed he was hitting his stride with the Orioles.  This boosted my opinion of the kindly and now intelligent Braves fans even higher.  I decided I would tour the rest of the park and took my leave.  My stomach led me to several eateries, and $5.75 later I was the owner of a foot long hot dog with all the fixings.

 

I hadn't eaten since two states ago, so the speed at which the jumbo dog was inhaled left little work for my taste buds.  From what I remember, the hot dog was serviceable, but I was surprised that in my wanderings I hadn't seen more sustenance that resembled southern soul food.  Where were the boiled peanuts, the hush puppies, the fried catfish, the BARBECUE?  Perhaps I missed it or didn't make it to the correct part of the park, but the food selection seemed to be lacking.  Yes, I was able to procure a hot dog.  Welcome to America's pastime.  At the Yard, barbecue-scented smoke billows from Boog's in right field.  Chunky crab cakes are seasoned with Old Bay.  It's a mid-Atlantic smorgasbord on the harbor.  A stadium has to create a cultural experience that highlights the local fare.  Otherwise, there's no reason for me to leave my couch and high definition TV and spend money at the ballpark.  I was planning on rating the food a 1 out of 5, but then I remembered that they sold 16 ounce cans of Yuengling lager, which bumped their food category up a full point: 2/5.

I had mentioned before that I was digging the fans.  Towards the sixth inning of the scoreless game, most of us were aware that Jurrjens was working on a no-hitter.  The Braves' young star, Jason Heyward, broke the tie, ripping a two-run line drive past the center field fence in the bottom of the sixth.  There was a huge drum in center field that led the cheer as fans made the tomahawk chopping motion with their arms after the homer.  In the top of the seventh, I watched a woman usher cover her gaping mouth, hoping with each anxious pitch that Jurrjens could carry the no-hitter another inning deeper.  Not long after that, Adam Jones extinguished her hopes with a single that was grounded up the middle.  Of course the O's couldn't score AJ, even after he stole second, but at least we appeared to be threatening in that one inning (Oh brother).

As per usual, the Stormin' Mormon pitched without run support, and after seven solid innings he handed the ball to our Hall of Shame-bound bullpen.  I can't say that at that point the floodgates were opened, but in any case the dam was breached and quickly we were losing by four runs instead of two.

Chipper Jones, a living legend of the Braves franchise, was warmly applauded and encouraged each at bat, while the miserable Dan Uggla swung wildly to a .175 average and a Golden Sombrero, but was never booed or disparaged by his patient fans.  Even the seven million dollar geriatric, Derrek Lee, received fan support because of his brief stint with the Braves.

Based on the general baseball knowledge and player support the Braves fans showed I would rank them with the highest grade possible, with the tipsy squaw at the ticket gate subtracting a point: 9/10.

This brings the overall tally for Turner Field to 23.5/30.  The fans were great, the stadium was enjoyable but lacked a classic feel, and increasing the diversity of the food offerings would make this ballpark one of the best.

Driving 12 hours roundtrip to see the Orioles get shutout was not the plan.  We were one-hit by a guy named Jair.  I was watching his speed, and only every once in a while he hit 90 MPH.  He wasn't throwing hard, but he threw a ton of strikes and his placement was impeccable.  I understand that he's been one of the best pitchers in the majors this year, but our showing was embarrassing.  We made him look better than he is.  There was no pep, no imagination, no fire, and no urgency in our play.  As I parked my car and shuffled to my bed at 3:30 that morning, I thought, "If only they cared as much as I do."