The Red Sox

And here we are, the prime reason for taking this trip, we are in Boston, MA.   The day started off a bit of a worry with rain.   To think that we have travelled half way across the world to see a game and potentially have it re-scheduled or even worse cancelled sent shivers up my spine.   But we were lucky and although still drizzling, the game went ahead.

One of the things we wanted to do was to do a tour of Fenway Park which is one of the oldest baseball grounds in the USA.   According to the website, tours are held on game days, on the hour until 3 hours before the game starts with tickets available on a first come first served basis.   We were there well before the last tour only to find that the tickets went on sale at the ground at 8.45 am that day, and were all sold out.   They didn't tell you that on the website and you couldn't book them online.   Disappointing, but what can you do, at least the game is going ahead.

The atmosphere is really pumping around the ground with street vendors selling all sorts of foods with of course the hot dogs being the most popular.   We actually found a little bar to sit in and shared a table with a very friendly Canadian couple who had flown down for the game.  
We had a burger there and a couple of drinks, just diet coke for me as it was quite humid.

The Green Monster

One thing we have discovered since being here is how polite and friendly people are here, us Australians could learn a thing or two, that's for sure.

The interesting thing is that they then clear Yawkey Way which is the entrance to the ground, and you then queue up and present your tickets and have all bags searched, as there are no cans or bottles allowed inside.

After making our way to our seats, it was like watching a passing parade of people and food!!! One thing for sure is you would never go hungry in this country.

These guys come by all the time and you can get drinks, hot pretzels, pizza, hot dogs, you name it, all without leaving your seat.

The atmosphere here is terrific, and almost everybody comes with their supporters gear on.  Also you don't get people abusing each other just because you support the opposition, unlike our AFL matches.

The ground was filled to capacity but as it has a capacity of 38,000 it is small compared to our football grounds.

The two guys sitting next to me had also flown in for the game from Dallas, Texas, and were very friendly as well. 

 Before the game starts the national anthem is always sung.   This time it was sung by Trace Adkins - a Country Music star who just happened to be in town performing concerts.

At the end of the 7th innings which is called the 7th innings stretch, the organist plays "Take me out to the ball game" and of course the whole crowd sign along as well!!  Its fantastic!!

Another tradition for Boston matches is the song "Sweet Caroline" which is played before Boston bat in the 8th innings.  Some parts of the song such as "good times never felt so good" are repeated by the crowd - "So good, so good, so good".   Its great crowd involvement and gets everyone going!!

Unfortunately on the day Boston went down to the NY Yankees, but it was a great game and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, which you can see by the look on David's face - big tick off that list!!

David - a happy man

Even though the weather was drizzling, it then got really cool, and because we weren't expecting it we had to go and buy warm tops from the Red Sox shop to keep warm, otherwise we would have frozen!!

An additional bonus for me was that the author Stephen King was sitting about 6 spots up from me.
I didn't know that he is a huge Red Sox fan and actually co-authored a book about their season in 2004.

All I can say is bring on the next game - I'm a fan!!

Stephen King