Cali Guy's First Trip To Fenway

Cali Guy’s First Trip To Fenway
By Dan McCarthy
feedback@barstoolsports.com

Boston is the epicenter of many things in America: colonial history, academia, Brazilian-owned Dunkin Donuts, the word "wicked." It also has co-opted, for better or worse, the title of keeper of the flame of baseball tradition. So when I went to my first games at Fenway this weekend, culminating with the Red Sox' 2-1 defeat of the A's on Saturday night, I was expecting a lot. Having grown up on back issues of Sports Illustrated that touted Fenway as a veritable Garden of the Gods when it came to watching a baseball game, I was fully prepared for nothing short of a religious experience. So I may have gone in with unfairly high expectations. In any case, I saw a lot of things – some good (the Rem Dawg), some bad (the Wave). So take it with a grain of salt if you will, but this is what I saw.

Now, most of my experience watching professional baseball has taken place in Southern California, which I realize here immediately conjures up the image of sports fans leaving the stadium two innings early to beat the traffic so they can hurry home to their trophy wives and their inarticulate, so-hot-they-melt-the-elastic-in-your-underwear
blonde daughters. However, for all the misshapen fake breasts and ill-timed fireworks displays, Angel Stadium has its charms. Say what you will, but every last seat possesses a majestic, unobstructed view of that magnificent fake-rock structure in center field.

Right off the bat, I liked Fenway. I like the architectural eccentricities, and I love how there is no doubt that the game is the central experience in the stadium. However, there are a few things that irritate me about baseball fans, and they seem to be more apparent in Fenway. Maybe it was because the A's were hitting like palsied children or because I was operating on four hours of sleep, but I picked up on some foibles that seem to be East-Coast-only phenomena.

First of all, what the hell is with the omnipresent faded, form-fitting Sox hats, replete with the U-shaped brim bend that makes the wearer look like an Arkansas pig farmer? This isn't something that's specific to Boston, but come on, City of Champions, you need to be setting a positive precedent here. The hats look like Abercrombie and Fitch started making baseball uniforms, although they appear to go great with the popped collar, faded jeans, and the rest of the frat-boy uniform. Seriously, you're twenty-seven years old. Cut that shit out right now and shell out the extra three dollars for an official Sox hat.

Also, one of the things that bothers me the most is the fan reaction to any ball hit in the air by a Red Sox player. The process has three
steps: 1) Batter strikes ball at any angle above horizontal. 2) Fans rise and cheer in anticipation of a home run. 3) Ball fades in center field, and fans sit back down. Again, I know this happens everywhere, but at Fenway it's a nightmare, especially when, say, David Ortiz is hitting. Perhaps it's the M.C. Escher sightlines that one gets from the right field bleachers, but the Sox faithful seem to be woefully lacking in depth perception, so that even the most meager of flares produces a cheer that would make you think Jorge Posada was getting torn apart by wild dogs in the outfield. Still, it does produce a pleasing sound when the ball is caught in short center field and the fans abruptly realize that they have no ability to judge distance:
AHHHH-awwwwwwww.

Also, and perhaps most egregiously, something happened THREE TIMES over the course of the game at Fenway that I have seen maybe four or five other times in my hundreds of times at West Coast stadiums: the Wave. This is Boston, a place where people are deeply ingrained with a respect for the game and the correct way to play it and appreciate it. Now, I shouldn't have to elaborate on why the Wave is retarded, but for starters, it gained popularity in Mexico during the 1986 World Cup. That's right - soccer. So when I saw the entire stadium get caught up in the Wave during the eighth inning of a one-run game between playoff contenders in September, I figured I must have been missing something, but I guess I was mistaken. Don't get me wrong, I like to drink and yell. But even I'm not amused by the Wave, and I'm a guy who can waste an entire afternoon with a tennis ball and a cinder-block wall. I know not all of you are to blame, Sox fans, but for those of you who are: thanks for irreparably damaging my faith in humanity.

So I'm not ready to bow down before the altar of baseball lore that is Fenway Park. It has its charms, and I guarantee I'll be back many a time, but before you point fingers at the West Coast as uncultured sports slobs, it may be time to take a look in the mirror.

Now, before you all inundate me with hate mail, I have to get back to my day job: sleeping in until Cold Pizza starts and then furiously praying for a meteor to hurtle into the studio, leaving no survivors.