I Got Kicked Out Of Seats That Weren’t Mine At Fenway Today; How Late Is Too Late To Show Up To A Baseball Game?

I took a little personal day from work today and caught some Red Sox at Fenway. No biggie. Beautiful day. Hottest day of 2018 by far, right? The skies were blue. It couldn’t have been better.

And these tickets were dirt cheap. My buddy and I grabbed some pretty solid seats for 20 bucks a piece. It was like catching a Paw Sox game except here we get to see Drew Pomeranz allow the opposing batter to drop bombs on the monster. Whatever. You win some you lose some. I just watched the Bruins get murdered on national TV and it looks like they couldn’t get the puck in deep. Sick hockey term.

So today my buddy and I, we start eye-ballin’ open seats down below. Just seeing what might be open. I check Ace Tickets and see that there are a couple of seats unsold down in Field Box 33 which is like, right below the dugout. So why not go see if we can hop in them? We slide down, and there’s no crotchety old person guarding the entrance to that section so we were in the clear. But we have to act quick. No lollygagging. No checking our surroundings. We need to act like these are our seats and we’re packing fat stacks in these pockets.

We get into the section and we are struggling to find the seats but see a couple of others open so we copped those. We are good. Seats 1 and 2 are ours for now. We expect to be kicked out at some point in the first couple of innings but whatever.

The 4th inning goes by, the Red Sox are making noise. Life is good and we haven’t been booted yet. These are our seats now, baby. Legit thought about building some real estate on them. Nobody was moving us.

But then we get into the 6th inning. The top of the 6th. And out of nowhere this woman shows up and looks at me and goes, “Those aren’t your seats. Those are mine”. My response was coy, but assertive. “Yeah, you’re right.” I said. “These aren’t my seats but we can just move here behind you”. So we slide back.

No big deal. Seriously it was the smallest hiccup in a top of the line day. But that got me thinking, we need ballparks to enforce rules on these things. If you don’t show your slow butt up by AT LEAST the 5th, but you still want to take in the game, you’re booted to standing room. It’s another product of a soft America. I mean hell, I was thinking about moving my family into that section and those seats and all of a sudden I’m getting moved by a woman who says she’s been sitting in those seats for 41 years? What, did you forget where the seats were, lady?

If ballparks don’t institute this rule within the next couple of years, it will just represent the resounding tone-deafness of the league. You don’t want this league to die? Make the fans start competing for their seats. Absolutely asinine to show up to a game in the top of the 6th inning and believe that your seats are still going to be there.

I’ll admit. I’m rattled just typing this. Just like that my entire day. Flipped. Shook. My plans for my future. Gone. I had to watch the rest of that game from the row behind where I had been the entire time. My eyes just got adjusted to that location. My neck just loosened up after watching Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez going yard over and over and over and over again. Insane move by this lady and I don’t know what to think. Just cooperate America doing corporate America things.

-Nick Quaglia (@NickQuag)