AP Photo
I took in yesterday’s game at Fenway, and my visit re-confirmed two things:
This team cannot hit in the clutch to save their lives, and if you are over six feet tall, as I am, the grandstands are no place for you.
I pick on the grandstands because they are, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest seats in the house, constructed in an era in which men wore powdered wigs and “invasion by martians” topped the list of government concerns. They are also the most ass-unfriendly if your belt size is north of 32. Despite a diet heavy on booze and Hostess products, I am not an entirely unfit gentleman, but I do clock in at around 230 and a good six feet two inches of pure Irish lust. That’s the wrong demographic for Grandstand seats. And unless you give yourself leg-numbing injections of lidocaine (or drink the equivalent in Jager shots) an hour prior to game time, you will start suffering somewhere around the third inning.
The easiest solution, of course, is to sit somewhere else. And I always try to. I’ve sat in just about every corner of the Park and the most comfortable, to me, are the Monster Seats & State Street Pavilion seats, both of which are usually priced well out of my budget. On the other hand, the grandstands offer the best views of the action at the best price — usually found a lot cheaper than the red box seats but with some truly awesome views of the action that the bleachers just can’t match. For example, here’s a shot from my vantage point in grandstand section 25, row 2:
Unfortunately, cheap bastard that I am, I’m almost always willing to forego comfort for a nice, affordable view. So yesterday, once again, I wedged myself into the grandstands and began self-medicating.
But then, after thirty odd years of Fenway-going, I discovered something: the row in front of me, which was the first row where the upper box seats ended and the grandstands began (or “row one” as the experts call it), has a few extra inches of legroom. Kinda like Fenway’s version of an airplane’s exit row. As the game ended and the row emptied out, I crawled up one row, sat my ass down, and verified that row one of the grandstands is where you want to sit if you’re of the tall persuasion.
Of course, I only had time to check this out in a few sections: 25, 24 and 23. I assume the architecture is the same throughout Fenway, but I can’t confirm or deny. What I will suggest, however, is that if you’re looking for a good view at a good price and need some extra leg room, go for row one of the grandstands whenever possible.
One last thing: as much as yesterday’s game sucked, with great pitching from Workman wasted when the offense couldn’t get a goddam thing going, that video they show of 2013 highlights always takes the pain away.
