Red Sox vs Blue Jays

A child's first trip to Fenway Park is a seminal experience, a life-changing event. The crowd, the buzz, Yawkey Way, the smell of sausages and peppers mingling on a hot grill, walking through the labyrinthine concourse searching for the correct stairway, and then, finally, the first view of the beautiful green, pristine grass. It is a quintessential American moment, one that the child is sure to remember forever and ever.

If only the kids themselves would appreciate the magnitude of the experience. Or the exorbitant cost of the tickets that parents must purchase in order for them to form this memory at all.

We took Andres and Celia on their first official trip to Fenway a few weeks back. (Celia had already been there once, on a field trip last year--but she didn't complain about going again.) The occasion: Red Sox vs Blue Jays with Jon Lester on the mound.

Pre-game excitement was quite high, with Andres (glove in hand) enjoying the train ride in. Celia walked along Yawkey Way like she owned the place, hopping up on sidewalks, running back into the street, stopping to gawk at people or throw her hat down so that I would pick it up (a fun game, you see). Once we got into the stadium and arrived at our seats (perfect--first row of the bleachers, with an aisle right in front of us), I expected them both to be awed by their surroundings (see first paragraph) and sit quietly for the first couple innings.

The Mayor (pro tempore) of Yawkey Way

That never materialized. It turns out that (a) baseball can be pretty boring to watch when you have the attention span of a flea and (b) baseball is a really hard game to explain to a semi-interested 4-year old. I gave up trying to explain the difference between fair and foul balls pretty quickly.

So although Andres and Celia will, no doubt, remember their first trip to Fenway with reverence and awe, I'll remember it as the time Natalia and I (and our friend Jeff, who was kind enough to put up with us for the evening in exchange for a ticket) tried to corral two kids who treated Fenway Park like a playground of some sort. I did find this a bit surprising; both kids (Andres especially) are used to sitting through soccer games at Gillette, and they are generally good spectators. But perhaps soccer is an easier sport to watch than baseball for the younger set--there is a clear goal, and the ball is moving constantly. Baseball, by contrast, is played at such a staccato pace...and even though we had great seats, we were looking at the (very small) backs of 9 players.

Celia found people-watching more entertaining than the game.

My favorite part of the night was when Natalia turned to me in the 6th inning and said "oh wow--the Blue Jays have no hits yet!" I thought to myself, "that can't be right--if we were witnessing a no-hitter, I would definitely know." Well, she was right. Turns out it is hard to even follow a baseball game when you are trying to persuade a couple of banshees that they should enjoy the game.

Eventually fatigue and resignation set in and the kids calmed down a bit. Oh--hot dogs and ice cream helped too. The middle innings proved a bit more calm, the Sox scored some runs (including a Pedroia home run to left), and we entered the ninth up 3-0.

A couple of guys enjoying the game.

Determined to beat the train traffic home, we departed as Papelbon was coming in to close things out. And wouldn't you know that by the time we arrived at the Green Line's Fenway platform he had given up 2 runs to let the Jays back in the game. Thankfully he closed it out without further incident, so we can say that the kids' first trip to Fenway was a successful one, if not entirely for us, then certainly for the team.

I don't want to end on that note though, as it reads more dour than I intend it to be. We all had a great time. And as memorable as a boy's first trip to Fenway years ago can be, it is dwarfed by a father's enjoyment at taking his son (and daughter) to their first game. How cool is that? Andres did spend some time watching the game, and he did enjoy the stadium environment (except for when we scored runs when the place exploded in cheering). Ice cream was a big hit. And Celia had her own kind of fun--waving at the people on the jumbotron, going for short walks through the concourse, and playing peek-a-boo with the kind people behind us. It was memorable for all of us. And kind of exhausting.

Yay! A half-decent, full family photo.