Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Is Fenway Park the Worst Value in Baseball?

I'm sure some of the exorbitantly priced seats at the new Yankee Stadium could give them a run for their money, but it doesn't get much worse than the vantage point KJ and I had for last night's game.

For $55 per ticket, here was our view of the on-field action:

Click to enlarge

Actually, since KJ was sitting one seat to my right, she could just barely see the batter, but not the catcher or the umpire.

But, there was a silver lining.

During the second inning, we discovered that we were sitting in the wrong row, and our real seats were one row closer to the field. As you can see from the next photo, this made a significant difference:

Click to enlarge

Seriously, though, this isn't the only reason I'm suggesting Fenway Park is worthy of this dubious distinction. Prior to the game, I was telling KJ that the stadium's right field boxes are the absolute worst seats I've ever witnessed a game from. 

For an idea of what I'm talking about, take a look a sections 91 and 92 on the Fenway Park Seating and Pricing page. As you view the field from the photo provided on the web site, note the direction of the seats, which I'll point out are beyond the right field foul pole (otherwise known as "Pesky's Pole"). They're facing directly into the right field corner. Now, try to imagine how your neck would feel at the conclusion of that game.

These seats go for $52 a pop.

But, these are just my observations, and I'm certainly not trying to say that last night wasn't an enjoyable night at the ballpark. The weather was perfect,  Philip Humber—bullpen support not withstanding—delivered almost as brilliant a performance as John Danks did the last time we saw a White Sox game, and we were lucky enough to witness former Yankee Alfredo Aceves's second career loss, against 16 wins.

Since an unusual play occurred during the game, I'll revisit what I've previously referred to as the "baseball lesson of the day."

In the home half of the 5th, Carl Crawford singled with nobody out. The next batter, Jed Lowrie, lofted a fly ball to center field, but Crawford was running on the pitch. He returned to first easily, but was called out when White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez appealed by stepping on second base.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what happened, but when asked by the girl sitting to my left, the explanation was that Crawford, after sliding into second, had taken a step towards third. This action subsequently required him to retouch second on his way back to first, something he neglected to do. Therefore, he was out on appeal.

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