Today is a holiday in my family.
Right up there with New Years, Turkey Day, and Hanukkah.
On this day you drop what you are doing, call in sick, and head to the Fens to witness the unveiling of a new season.
For 16 years, starting in 1990, it was family tradition. My dad and my neighbor Stevie would sleep out on the cold pavement outside the Red Sox ticket window the day tickets went on sale. They would wake up the next morning, well positioned in line, and purchase tickets to multiple games, but most importantly, Opening Day.
When the day of the game would arrive, unfathomable excitement would overtake me. I would go to school in the morning, knowing I would be dismissed at around 11 A.M. As such, I spent my time in school entirely fixated on the game. Between writing down potential lineups, and staring at the clock, time seemed to move very quickly. At around 11, the call would come from the office to dismiss me. I would sprint down the hallway, my head spinning at how I would spend the rest of my day.
Right up there with New Years, Turkey Day, and Hanukkah.
On this day you drop what you are doing, call in sick, and head to the Fens to witness the unveiling of a new season.
For 16 years, starting in 1990, it was family tradition. My dad and my neighbor Stevie would sleep out on the cold pavement outside the Red Sox ticket window the day tickets went on sale. They would wake up the next morning, well positioned in line, and purchase tickets to multiple games, but most importantly, Opening Day.
When the day of the game would arrive, unfathomable excitement would overtake me. I would go to school in the morning, knowing I would be dismissed at around 11 A.M. As such, I spent my time in school entirely fixated on the game. Between writing down potential lineups, and staring at the clock, time seemed to move very quickly. At around 11, the call would come from the office to dismiss me. I would sprint down the hallway, my head spinning at how I would spend the rest of my day.
I would return to my house to the smell of microwaved popcorn and the sound my dad nagging my mom about how we needed leave at least an hour before game time. Along with our gloves, we would pack my parents old blue backpack with everything anyone could ever want to eat at a game: Peanuts, popcorn, grapes, cookies, cherries, turkey, apples, cracker-jacks, and sun flower seeds. Of course, my parents would stop at El Giardino's to grab huge overflowing deli sandwiches on the way, and by the time we got to the park, we had enough food to feed the whole section.
We would park in the secret ritzy neighborhood hidden between Comm Ave and Beacon street, where parking was free if you knew exactly where the police liked to ticket. We would walk to the game, stopping at "The Short Stop Deli" on Brookline Avenue to grab the best deal in Boston; 2 dogs, chips, and a large drink for $4.99. Usually the owner, Rosie, would also throw in some purple big league chew that she would order specially for me, free of charge.
Every year on the way to the park, right after we passed Graffiti Rock on Commonwealth Ave next to the BU bridge, my dad would turn to me and say the same 8 words. "I can feel it. This is the year." Most years we would both wait a few anxious seconds while this idea floated through our brains and then laugh because we knew it was a pipe dream. Remember, these were the early 90's and the Red Sox had a consistent track record of marching out teams with over hyped youngsters and veterans two or three years past their prime. Players like Scott Cooper and Carlos Quintana would tease with their seemingly huge upside, while there was always hope that vets like Jack Clark, Mark Whiten, and Rob Deer would suddenly regain the skills they possessed in their heyday, five years prior. We would proceed to park anyway, happy to watch what would usually amount to the beginning of a train wreck. We would cheer the Danny Darwin's of the world and try to hold out hope that it would all come together.
What I never imagined is that when it did, the whole Opening Day experience would be altered forever.
Instead of cheering on a lovable loser with a bunch of has-beens and never will be's, it was cheering the newest multi-million dollar acquisition of the John Henry and Co. Rosie's deli was turned into an Ace Ticket, a corrupt ticket broker who uses loopholes in the law and friends in high places to make a killing of tickets that used to go to the everyday fan.
Old, worn "good-luck" hats were replaced by Green and Pink ones sporting 10 different types of logos on the front, back, and sides.
Tickets stopped being sold at the box office, and went gradually from being sold over the phone, to strictly online. To top things off, instead of being able to buy multiple games at once it was changed to being able to buy one game before starting all over, or until a glitch in the system started you back at the beginning empty handed. Ticket prices went up and up and up, until it cost nearly $500 to take a family of 4 to a game. Fenway became the place to be seen, and everyone in New England tried to outbid one another to get in.
Now I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed what the new ownership has done for the organization. The new additions to the park look and feel great, the food and sound is better, and two championships in three years is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. But with all that, came what feels like a glamorizing of one of the simplest joys I have ever experienced.
And while the past few years my neighbor and dad have been able to find their way into opening day, through ticket brokers, or an entire day spent on the phone, it really has never been the same. Opening day turned into a "who's who" for celebrities and a place to take clients in big shot law firms. The regular fans were slowly and silently squeezed out. And this year, for the first time in over 20 years, my dad and neighbor were shut out. Tickets sold out too quickly and ticket brokers have gotten the best of them one too many times. So they are resigned to do like the rest of the so-called Nation. They will watch from home or follow along on the computer at work.
I just hope that somewhere out there, there is a little kid getting dismissed from school on his way to the park with a backpack full of food and his glove in his hand.
But somehow, I doubt it. And that makes me a little sad.
What I never imagined is that when it did, the whole Opening Day experience would be altered forever.
Instead of cheering on a lovable loser with a bunch of has-beens and never will be's, it was cheering the newest multi-million dollar acquisition of the John Henry and Co. Rosie's deli was turned into an Ace Ticket, a corrupt ticket broker who uses loopholes in the law and friends in high places to make a killing of tickets that used to go to the everyday fan.
Old, worn "good-luck" hats were replaced by Green and Pink ones sporting 10 different types of logos on the front, back, and sides.
Tickets stopped being sold at the box office, and went gradually from being sold over the phone, to strictly online. To top things off, instead of being able to buy multiple games at once it was changed to being able to buy one game before starting all over, or until a glitch in the system started you back at the beginning empty handed. Ticket prices went up and up and up, until it cost nearly $500 to take a family of 4 to a game. Fenway became the place to be seen, and everyone in New England tried to outbid one another to get in.
Now I am not saying that I haven't enjoyed what the new ownership has done for the organization. The new additions to the park look and feel great, the food and sound is better, and two championships in three years is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. But with all that, came what feels like a glamorizing of one of the simplest joys I have ever experienced.
And while the past few years my neighbor and dad have been able to find their way into opening day, through ticket brokers, or an entire day spent on the phone, it really has never been the same. Opening day turned into a "who's who" for celebrities and a place to take clients in big shot law firms. The regular fans were slowly and silently squeezed out. And this year, for the first time in over 20 years, my dad and neighbor were shut out. Tickets sold out too quickly and ticket brokers have gotten the best of them one too many times. So they are resigned to do like the rest of the so-called Nation. They will watch from home or follow along on the computer at work.
I just hope that somewhere out there, there is a little kid getting dismissed from school on his way to the park with a backpack full of food and his glove in his hand.
But somehow, I doubt it. And that makes me a little sad.
