JetBlue Park at Fenway South

Boston Red Sox, Spring Training

8/10

The crowd files inside just after first pitch.

A nice sized crowd takes in a Friday nighter vs. Baltimore.

A hasty picture from the right field corner and Spring Training '17 is a wrap!

I headed to Fort Myers after a day game in Bradenton, to check out the relatively new Red Sox park in Fort Myers. It was a night game against the Orioles, with a large crowd on hand. I managed to run just a bit behind and didn't make it to my seat until the start of the 2nd inning. This a new park as of 2012, when it replaced an older stadium closer to the centre of Fort Myers. This one is technically just outside the city limits. This, I believe was my most expensive game of the entire trip, but it was also the last. The weather was perfect however, so there was at least that. This is a very large, very ornate park, serving fans from all corners of "Red Sox Nation". It reminds me of some of the newer spring parks in terms of size, like Salt River, but compares the best to Sloan Park, with an iconic team, with a big fan base, playing in a large, new and expensive spring park.

I bought on a resale site and sat next to the guy who had been selling the tickets, who decided to go to the game when the other ticket didn't sell. He was a decent guy and explained how the old spring park, "City of Palms" was in a bit of a dicey neighbourhood. When he and two friends had gone to a Sox game there at some point in the past, they were stopped by police walking home and asked why they were in the area..that bad. The usual problems of bad parking and low capacity versus demand meant this move was likely inevitable.

I somewhat resent this trend of making spring training stupid expensive, but you can't really hate this park. It's impressive, no bones about it. Large concourse, the seating area is nicely spread out and there's a "mini-monster" in left field. Concession was adequate and maybe a little expensive. Atmosphere was a shrug. There were lots of die-hard fans, but lots of highly disinterested casual types, so it was a wash. The only real thing was parking, with ingress being lousy(I arrived at first pitch though, so I deserve a little blame..) and egress being a disaster(a three car collision did not help). All in all, I didn't hate coming here, but there are other parks in the area I'd head for first. 8/10.

Linescore
2017-03-10
                           123    456   789  RHE
Baltimore             000    000   000   061
Boston                300    100   000   450
Temp: N/A   Time: 2:29   Att: 9,957