Tuesday, August 14, 2007

The Monster Seats are Stupid

Think fast. What is the definitive feature of Fenway Park in Boston?
And what can't a fan see when he or she is sitting in the Monster seats?
Exactly. Therein lies the reason I can't stand the novelty seats atop the Green Monster, or the fans who somehow think it's cool.
It's supposedly sacriligeous for a Red Sox fan to find anything about Fenway to be less than divine. The quaint, homey atmosphere and history makes it okay that 75 percent of the seats have an obstructed view of some part of the field, that the seats are uncomfortable and the legroom is less than the backseat of Aaron's Saturn (full disclosure: All information regarding the backseat of Aaron's car came from interviews with this woman).
The Monster Seats represent the further retardation of the Fenway spell, however. From ad creep (then vs. now) to the bloated roster (then vs. now), current Red Sox ownership have bottled and packaged the enchantment and made it a product. Kind of like you-know-what.
Where am I going with this? I have no idea. I'm happy the Red Sox are keeping Fenway around, rather than give into the prospect of big attendance and fast money by building a new stadium. I never thought I'd see Yankee Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field or Fenway go down, but pretty soon it'll be two down, two to go.
No one who is truly interested in the game would sit atop the monster. Essentially, the Monster Seats are overpriced bleachers with a terrible view. "Fans" only want to sit up there so later than can squeal to all their friends, "I sat on the Green Monster!" Kind of like teenage girls who stand for hours at shopping mall FYEs to have some boy band star sign their CD and flash a smile, just so the girls can say they "met" said heartthrob later.
The alternative to commercializing every inch of Fenway Park is, of course, blowing it up. That should never happen. I'll just continue to be disgruntled and refuse to sit there (which shouldn't be too hard, seeing as I can't get tickets to any Red Sox home game anyway) while loving the fact the owners aren't giving up their cozy 38,000-seat landmark. Instead, they're hitting each and every paying fan with obnoxiously skyrocketing ticket costs.
Only in America.

1 comment:

aaronic said...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Barbara Walters, maybe. But Judge Judy...? Wait, who gets paid in the scenario?