BOSTON, MA:
When we went: June 2008
Where we stayed: The Liberty Hotel (pretty nice, although way out of my price range)
Where we ate: Fenway – They don’t seem to have a staple food, but the Hot Dogs were good.
Where we drank: Cask N Flagons – Right next to Fenway. They advertise that they are one of the top sportsbars in the nation. I’m not sure how that is ranked because I can go to a BW’s right by my house and it seems to be the exact same atmosphere. The fact that it was next to Fenway, it was pretty big, and it served beer though made it a fun time.
Things to do: Go to a Red Sox game. Fenway is just about as cool as advertised. Most of the appeal is knowing that you’re in a historic place though so if you don’t know baseball, it’s like a giant minor league park. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you what to do… we were lost most of the trip. Try the freedom trail or something… just don’t attempt to drive like we did. USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION.
What we did:
Just to get the record straight, I am not a Redsox fan. I have always wanted to visit the historic ballparks though like Wrigley and Fenway. This happened to be a great opportunity because we know a major league umpire and he was umping a game at Fenway. I think I’ll leave his name out of this post though to protect his identity. I’ll call him “Blue.”
Day 1
This trip was destined to create memories because I went with Jason and Kurt… my two roommates from the college days at 242. Brittany didn’t come with us this time. We drove 12 hours from Colu
mbus to Boston along I-90. I think I slept most of the way. When we got there, we stayed at the Liberty Hotel. It’s a luxury hotel downtown and used to be an old jail. Everything inside, including the bar (The Clink) had some sort of nuance of life in the slammer.
We walked around near the hotel for about an hour until we found some lobster sandwiches and then left for the ballpark. I forgot the name of the place where we ate. When we got to Fenway, I quickly realized that this trip was going to be the closest experience I would ever have to super star status. We drove into the players lot, parked, and as two security guards sprinted towards us yelling, “Get the fack outta here! You can’t pawk here!”, Blue tossed his keys to the guard and said, “well then move my car to where it can be parked. I’m an umpire and these are my friends.” The guard was in shock and didn’t seem to know how to respond. Blue showed the guard his umpire badge and asked the guy his name. I swear he gave him a “$20.00 handshake.” It was like a scene out of Goodfellas. so we walked in… without tickets.. without credentials… without any concern about who the guy was we gave our keys to and what he was about to do with our car… it was awesome. We walked through the concourse like every day joes, except when we wanted to go into any sort of restricted area, Blue just sort of nodded, shook some hands, and we passed on through. Nobody recognized Blue except the people that mattered, and they all knew who he was. We ended up eating some hot dogs in the Umpire locker room and then hung out in the visiting St. Louis Cardinals dugout during batting practice. During the game, as expected, we got tanked and played the cup game. After the game, Blue dropped us off at some random “I just graduated from college” bar. There was plenty of eye candy, but Jason was the only single one of us there and he didn’t bring his A-Game so we left. That night, Jason snored so loud that Blue left and got a new room. The workers at the front desk of the hotel said they could hear him snoring from the elevator. So Jason Conner, AKA Dale Jr., AKA Craig Krenzel, AKA Clubber Lang, AKA Chainsaw, is now also known as The $300 Snorer.
Day 2
If there’s one thing I learned about Boston it’s that driving there SUCKS. I don’t know why we decided to drive instead of take public transportation, but we pretty much were lost all morning before the game on day 2. We finally did make it to the stadium where we had time to walk around and act like fans. We found Blue who gave Kurt 50% off some Boston apparel.
We found a pretty kick ass bar called Cask N Flagons. I have no clue what that means, but it is right next to Fenway. It is broken up into two sections. The back area is more like a club and then the front is more like a sports bar. After the game we went back and stayed for a while. We spent that night in Cape Cod with family before driving back.
Day 3
The third day we went to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, NY “on the way” home. It was pretty lame so there’s not much to say about it. It’s overpriced, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and they don’t have a room dedicated to the Cleveland Indians so it’s pretty much a waste of time. I think I’ll take my kids there one day so they can say they were there but otherwise, I’ll never go back.
