That's what they get for building a park on the ocean

We had tickets for Saturday night's Red Sox game against the Orioles. The forecast called for a 60% chance of rain throughout the entire evening so we left for Fenway fully expecting a rainout. We parked in Brookline and in the park across the street we noticed a couple of the famous Brookline turkeys. Doug was wearing his Sox cap in Hokie colors and I'm sure they approved.

We arrived in time to jump in line for early entry to the Green Monster seats to watch Red Sox batting practice. All members of the official Red Sox Nation are eligible for this benefit. It was already sprinkling as we made our way up to the Monster. The tarp was on the field so no BP but it was cool to check out the Monster seats and the view from up there, which is not bad at all. We've got standing room Monster seats for next month so we were able to scope out the best areas to stand. The annoying thing about being let up there is once you're in, they force you to stay up there until the gates open to the general public. They wouldn't even let this one poor kid leave to go to the bathroom!
Once the gates did open and they released us, we went straight for the right field bleachers to get some photos of the Ted Williams red seat. This seat marks the spot where the longest home run ever hit inside Fenway Park landed. Ted Williams hit the home run on June 9, 1946 and it measured 502 feet. By then it was still two hours before the first pitch so we killed more time wandering around the park and getting some snacks. Doug made a stop in the Grand Stand area to check out his seats for the Phish concert coming up next month. I'm sure there will be a blog about that when the time comes, so stay tuned. We checked out the Green Monster scoreboard for the Yankees score and noticed it read "CLE 20, NYY 2"! We figured that had to be a mistake but fortunately it was not, the Yankees ended up losing 24-4. Next we walked over to Autograph Alley to get a couple of signatures from Oil Can Boyd, the former Sox pitcher who once famously said after a game in Cleveland was postponed due to fog, "That's what they get for building a park on the ocean."
We finally made our way to our seats in the bleachers, right under the scoreboard. We actually bought these tickets for face value ($12) on the official Red Sox website the day they went on sale. First time we've managed face value seats since we've lived in Mass. You pretty much get what you pay for with the bleacher seats - you have to squint to read the scoreboard above home plate, you can't see the large scoreboard over your head, and you really have no perspective of where the ball is going. But the atmosphere in the bleachers was as rowdy and fun as always and the Sox gave us a good win. As a bonus, not one raindrop fell the entire game. The funniest thing we heard all night was a guy walking down the steep aisle of the bleachers - "I almost took a wicked diggah."

After the game we got back to the car and even though a lot of cars on the nearby streets had parking tickets, ours did not. I think those Brookline turkeys were watching out for us. Our next trip to Fenway will be those Monster tickets on May 19 so I'll back then with more tales from the park.