Just the ticket...

By The Red Sox Girl

Editor's note: Welcome new blogger - "The Red Sox Girl" - to Yankeessuck.com. "Girl" is representin' for the youth of Boston who consider themselves 'born into it'.
Last June, my friend Nicki and I decided that we wanted to go to a Red Sox game in the next couple of days, but that's not as easy as it sounds. Looking online, I discovered that all the games were already sold out, even though our opponents were Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, not the New York Yankees or the Chicago White Sox! The cheapest seats I could find were over $100 which I was not willing to pay for standing room only. Then I remembered, earlier that spring my family and I got day-of-game tickets for face value and still had a lot of fun.

For every home game, the Red Sox reserve a small number of tickets and sell them at the day-of-game ticket window outside of the Green Monster two hours before game time. For various reasons, fans are only allowed to starting lining up for these tickets five hours before game time. On June 15, 2005, Nicki and I showed up a little over five hours before game time, and nobody else was milling around waiting for lineup time, so we were excited. Once the five hour mark came, we started the line and soon other people joined us. There was a lot of excitement among the fans regarding Bronson Arroyo, who was scheduled to pitch. (Who could guess that he would later pitch FOR very same Reds this year.) Fans in line chatted about the beautiful weather, and speculated about exactly how many tickets they would be releasing.

For a die-hard fan like me, three hours is not a long time to wait in order to get tickets, and the time went quickly. Once the ticket window opened, we asked for the best seats they had, and the woman told me that all they had were bleacher seats remaining. I asked her if they had any others available besides bleachers, and she turned around, looked at the man who was standing behind her, and asked if she could release these two tickets, and he nodded in agreement. She told us that she had two Right Field Box seats for $45 a seat, and we were excited. Little did we know just how lucky we would be.

We made our way into the park, and decided to see where our seats were. We kept looking for "RF Box 86," but found ourselves working our way almost to the bleachers without spotting our section. We looked behind us but could not find the sign for Box 86. We looked in front of us and saw the sign. It was the first 20 or so rows in right field, and we were excited. An usher asked if she could help us find our seats, and I gave her my ticket. The usher asked how we got the seats, and we responded at the day-of-game ticket window, and she seemed surprised. She kept leading us forward, closer and closer to the field. Finally she pointed us to the front row and we were stunned! We would be sitting in the front row of Fenway Park! This was our dream come true, and we could not stop jumping up and down and screaming.

The game was an amazing game, with Bronson Arroyo going 7 innings with one run ball, and Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke pitching a scoreless 8th and 9th inning to win the game 6-1, sweeping the series. I've done day-of-game tickets since, and never was able to get front row seats again, but I have absolutely no complaints, and it is worth the wait. For anyone that wants to get tickets -- the legal way-- to a sold-out game, I highly recommend waiting on line. It was an experience that I will never forget.

Until next time,
The Red Sox Girl

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