Up on the Roof

When the new owners (and it looks like they will always be referred to as the new owners) bought the Red Sox, they paid so much for the team that there was no way they could build a new ballpark, a luxury the fans of 28 other teams have enjoyed, some twice. So, they set about trying to fool us into thinking we had a new ballpark by putting seats into different places, throwing huge ads above them, and charging lots of money to sit in them. Meanwhile, most of us were left with the 1930s-era grandstand seats, many of which face Logan Airport.

Well, I finally got my shot at the new seats. Last March, after sitting in the Virtual Waiting Room for the usual several hours, I scored tickets to the seats on the right field roof under the Giant Beer Conglomerate sign. On Wednesday, we trudged up the golden spiral staircase for the game against the Orioles.

The Sox won the game, 7-5, and it was a pretty good game, with Victor Martinez driving in three runs with a pinch-hit double for the win.

I wish I could say the seats are pretty good. They aren’t.

We got there and were greeted by a self-important usher, who told us that the security guy would stamp our hands and our tickets, so we could escape and come back if we wanted to. Then he led us to our home-plate-shaped table in the third row where we took our seats. You’re not facing the field, you are facing the people you came to the game with, which is OK if you want to talk. But if you want to talk, why not stay home or go to a real restaurant? Don’t you come to a ball game to watch the ball game? My seat faced Logan Airport.

The waitress came buy to explain that she would be serving us during the game, which means that she would continue to come by every few minutes, because on the Giant Beer Conglomerate deck, it’s all about the food, not the ballgame that would take place below us. As part of the $115 tickets, the table had a $25 per person food credit to eat up.

We started with a round of beers. No Sam Adams here, this is the Giant Beer Conglomerate deck and your choices are Giant Beer Conglomerate regular, Giant Beer Conglomerate Light, and Giant Beer Conglomerate Lime. My wife and daughters ordered food, but I decided to wait until I was hungry, much to the consternation of our waitress, who came by every few seconds to ask if I was ready to order yet.

After watching several planes land at Logan, I looked back over my left shoulder to see that the game had started! We were then treated to more visits from the waitress and a gentleman selling 50-50 raffle tickets, prompting my daughter to remark, “What is this, the Cape Cod League?”

As for the food, some of it was typical ballpark – Fenway Franks, sausages, peanuts – some of it was not. I opted for an $11.85 club sandwich, which consisted of one layer (aren’t club sandwiches usually two?) of turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato on toasted white bread. Not real appealing and not worth $11.85, but we had $100 of food to eat, so at least it added to the total. At the end of the night, he waitress made a big production of “time to settle up” and handed us out check for $102. Damn, we went two bucks over! One of the items on the bill was $4 for something called “Blank Classes.” We didn’t remember taking any classes, let alone blank ones, so we asked the waitress, who didn’t know what that was!!! Turns out, they didn’t know what category to put a hot chocolate in, so it ended up in an unnamed (blank) class.

Meanwhile, down on the field, this baseball game kept intruding into all the fun on the roof. Being so far up and so far from home plate, you really don’t feel like you are part of the game, but I couldn’t help noticing that Orioles manager Dave Trembly (who looks like William Shatner’s kid brother) kept changing pitchers. He used three pitchers in the sixth, three more in the seventh, and another in the eighth. Seven pitchers to nine outs. And we think our pitchers can’t go very long.

So, with all the pitching changes, we left after the eighth inning, when the game was already 3½ hours long. But we left with lots to remember about our night on the roof. Mainly, we’ll remember to sit somewhere else next time.