Photo courtesy of Kelly O’Connor.
I have a confession to make: prior to this past weekend, I had never been to Boston before.
That’s right. I’ve written about the Red Sox here on Fire Brand since January, and followed Boston sports for years at a level that could probably be considered “obsession,” and yet I’d never been to the city before… let alone been to Fenway.
Sure, I’d seen the Sox play live before, against the Orioles at Camden Yards several times. Prior to this recent success, Sox-O’s games in Baltimore frequently became de facto home games for Boston, as Red Sox fans flocked down in droves to see the team play for cheaper than the cost of Fenway Park.
This past weekend, though, I finally made it up to Boston to see the Red Sox. And it wasn’t just any game:
Red Sox vs. Yankees. Fenway Park.
It’s impossible to really capture the feeling of seeing Fenway in person for the first time. The energy in the park – and on Yawkey Way – in the time before, during, and after the game is something incalculable that sets the Fenway experience apart. There’s an aura that surrounds the stadium that likely stems from being 101 years old.
Camden Yards doesn’t quite offer that, nor does Nationals Park, another venue I’ve attended. Baseball at stadiums like those is a replicable experience. That’s not a knock on the parks, either; they’re both wonderful stadiums. They’re modern, clean, and comfortable, and there’s not a bad view to be found in them.
But they’re not the same.
Sunday’s game began on the wrong foot, with the Yankees racing out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first two innings after some shaky pitching from Ryan Dempster and two early Red Sox errors. The tension in the stadium by that point was palpable; no Sox fan in attendance wanted to see a Yankees blowout, especially on a night that was seemingly blessed for baseball – Boston had been swelteringly hot for several days leading up to the game, but Sunday night, the city was comfortably in the 60s. Baseball weather.
The crowd relaxed soon enough, though, as the bottom of the third brought home four runs, including a towering Napoli three-run homer into the Green Monster seats.
Now, you have to understand, I’m a student at Virginia Tech. Our home football stadium, Lane Stadium, is considered one of the loudest in college sports. I can submit this video as evidence of that. And as a whole, baseball games just don’t get as loud as most other sports. It’s a more relaxed atmosphere.
But when Napoli hit that ball into the Green Monster seats, bringing home Pedroia and Ortiz… well, Fenway was every bit as loud as Lane Stadium on a Thursday night.
From there, the park was all comfortable excitement. By the top of the sixth inning, the Sox had widened their lead to 7-3, and seemed to be in complete control.
Which, of course, signaled a Yankees comeback. This is baseball, after all.
A mere two singles, one error, and one ground-out later, and the Yankees had the game tiEd Heading into the eighth inning. It was during this rally that two of the game’s most memorable moments occurred.
First, David Ortiz stole second. It happened. I saw it. It came with two outs, on what appeared to be fielder’s indifference by Chris Stewart, but still. The crowd was well aware of the significance, as well, cheering (or laughing, or something in between) as Ortiz rumbled his way through the basepath.
Hey, it was his fourth steal of the year – a career-high – and his 15th for his career. You could say I got to witness something pretty rare.
Second, in the top of the seventh, Brett Gardner drew a walk… on 15 pitches. He worked the count full, then fouled off Tazawa’s pitches again and again until the crowd was seemingly just cheering for the at-bat to end, one way or another. The lines at the bathrooms were especially long after that one ended.
From there, the two teams settled into a war of attrition, with neither scoring again until the Sox eventual walk-off. The Red Sox expended their bullpen early; Breslow, Tazawa, Thornton, and Uehara had all been used prior to the start of extras, meaning Drake Britton and Pedro Beato were the arms called upon during the 10th and 11th. The Yankees, meanwhile, tapped into their bizarre, seemingly endless reserve of high-K, low-ERA bullpen arms. This was a game that the Yankees would have won had it lasted any longer.
The crowd reached its most anxious state in the top of the 10th, when Britton relieved Koji, and promptly walked Brett Gardner, got Ichiro out on a well-hit fly ball, and surrendered a single to Robinson Cano, before finally ending the inning by forcing Lyle Overbay into a double play.
In the 11th, well, you know what happened. Napoli’s solo shot found the seats in dead center. The crowd reached – and possibly surpassed – the noise level of the previous Napoli homer. And then it was over.
And so went my first Fenway experience. A David Ortiz steal, 15-pitch at-bat, the most Mike Napoli game of all time (2 HR, 3 K, 1 GIDP), Sweet Caroline in the 8th (of which I am an unapologetic defender), much-needed Koji high-fives in the 9th, and – perhaps most importantly – a lack of Mariano Rivera combined to make it one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
Red Sox games at Fenway are some kind of religious experience for Red Sox fans, and my advice to Sox fans (or fans of baseball in general) who haven’t been there yet is simple: go. At least once, make the trip up and see them play. It doesn’t have to be the Yankees, just make sure you go. Every minute you spend there, you think just one thing: Holy [redacted], this is Fenway Park.
It’s an experience that is all too rare in sports today.