When my girlfriend told me she had been selected to make a presentation at a conference in Boston and that I was welcome to accompany her on the trip, I immediately raced to the computer in hopes of purchasing tickets to a Red Sox game.

I’ve always been enamored with Fenway Park, ever since my father described the stadium to me when I was a young child. I remember him mentioning "the Green Monster in left field." I don’t know if he failed to clarify, or if I failed to hear him correctly, but I had no idea he was talking about a wall – Fenway’s famous left-field fence. My imagination went wild, and for a long time, I thought there literally was a fuzzy green cartoon character hanging by some sort of cable above the outfield. I think I was about 5 years old.

Not long afterward, the Minnesota Twins played in Fenway against the Red Sox. We watched the game on TV, and I finally discovered that the Green Monster actually was a fence. I was disappointed, of course, but I still wanted to see it in person some day.

Earlier this summer, I thought I finally had a chance. I logged on to the Red Sox team Web site, and my heart stopped when I saw that Boston was playing the New York Yankees in a four-game series during the week of my stay. My heart sunk when I learned that the series was in New York. The Red Sox were not scheduled to play a home game during my seven-day stay in Beantown.

But all was not lost. My girlfriend discovered that the Red Sox offer tours of the stadium, and we decided to make the trip.

Tours are offered every day, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., every hour on the hour or until three hours prior to the start of a game. Each tour, which is guided by "an official Fenway Park Tour Guide," lasts 50 minutes. Adult tickets cost $12.

My girlfriend and I gathered with a large group of baseball enthusiasts outside of the Red Sox team store on Yawkey Way for the 2 p.m. tour on Thursday. Our guide told us that the session was sold out – 100 people purchased tickets – and that we’d have to be split into two groups. I don’t know if a sellout is a regular occurrence, and I’m not sure if tours are offered during the winter, but I think it’s safe to assume that the Red Sox pull in a lot of extra income by ushering wide-eyed fans through an empty stadium.

Can you imagine the Twins offering tours of the Metrodome? Would you shell out $12 to walk the cold, concrete corridors, stare at fake grass, study the stretched-out garbage bag that passes for a right-field fence and admire a Teflon roof that some fools believe contains a swastika? Would you do it for free? I didn’t think so.

The Metrodome, as I quickly discovered after the tour began, still has its perks. Fenway Park features old, wooden concession stand menu boards that resemble the manual scoreboard on the Green Monster. There is nothing old-fashioned, however, about the prices. A few examples:

A domestic beer: $8.25.

Burger Bites: $8.10.

Fenway Frank: $4.55.

Regular soda: $4.25.

Water: $3.55.

 

Then there are the ticket prices. Fenway Park features 16 seating areas that cost more than $50 per game, including nine that cost more than $115. According to Forbes, the average ticket price for a single game at Fenway Park is $50. The Metrodome, on the other hand, features just two seating areas that cost more than $55 per game, with no areas costing more than Fenway’s fourth-cheapest area ($215). The average price of a Twins ticket is $21.
It costs $325 to sit near Boston’s dugout and $270 to sit near the visitor’s dugout. A Green Monster seat is much cheaper than I thought it would be, costing $160 per game, and a standing-room only ticket for the Green Monster is just $30. The problem: It’s incredibly difficult to get those tickets.

The Red Sox have sold out every game since May 14, 2003. Demand is high, and seats are limited. And even though Fenway is the third-smallest stadium in Major League Baseball, with a capacity of just 38,805, the Red Sox pull in $176M at the gate. The Metrodome’s capacity is listed at 46,632, but the Twins bring in just $44M in gate receipts, according to Forbes.

The income provided by Fenway Park tours represents a very small chunk of the total revenue the Red Sox bring in annually, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. According to Forbes, the Red Sox rank No. 3 in value and No. 2 in revenue among Major League Baseball teams. The Twins rank No. 22 in both team value and revenue. The New York Yankees are No. 1 in each category.

And now that the Yankees have moved to New Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park ranks No. 1 in history.

The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders – now the Yankees – on April 20, 1912, in the first professional game played at Fenway. Approximately 27,000 fans attended the game, which took place just a few days after the Titanic sank.

Our tour guide relayed the information to us as we sat at round wooden tables on the upper-level deck down the right-field line. He spoke very loudly and quickly, and he didn’t use any notes. He seemed to have his whole spiel memorized, right down to the friendly wise-cracks about the Yankees. I’d hate to be a Fenway Park tour guide.

The view from the deck down the right-field line offered a spectacular view of the Green Monster – and a crane. Paul McCartney "rocked" Fenway Park the previous evening, and about 20 people were working in center field, under the hot sun, to deconstruct the former Beatles star’s stage. Our tour guide informed us that we normally would be able to explore the Green Monster seats, but because the crane was lifting pieces of Paul McCartney’s stage over the fence and to the street on the other side, we could only enjoy our obstructed view of The Monster from afar. I was devastated. They at least could have hung a fuzzy green cartoon character from the crane’s cable.

The field was gorgeous, except for the stage, the crane, a large truck in right-center field and numerous brown spots on the outfield grass that showed up after the concert equipment was removed. Five maintenance workers lugged heavy hoses across the field, slowly watering the grass. Two other employees, holding leaf blowers, walked in a pair up and down the outfield, clearing confetti and trash from the field and/or drying the grass. An older gentleman, bent over on his hands and knees, used a scissors to cut the grass near the end of the left-field foul line.

The field maintenance wasn’t always this serious. And there wasn’t always a Green Monster. The original park featured a steep, 10-foot embankment, which ran in front of the wall, where fans were allowed to sit. It came to be known as "Duffy’s Cliff" – named for Red Sox left fielder Duffy Lewis, who apparently was very skilled at playing balls that were hit to the ledge. But business owners on Lansdowne Street hated it; home runs balls often shattered their store windows.

Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, sick and tired of being sued for damages and seeing fans watch games for free from outside of the stadium, decided to construct a 37-foot left-field wall. Later, in 1947, when the wall’s advertisements were covered in green paint, the Green Monster was born.

In 2003, as part of a nearly decade-long renovation process that cost over $200M, seats were constructed on the Green Monster. The addition of the Green Monster seats represented one of many changes aimed at bolstering the capacity of the park by nearly 2,000. Recently, there has been somewhat of a rush to make as many necessary changes as possible.

In 2012, Fenway Park will turn 100 years old. It also will be granted landmark status. Once a building has been declared a landmark, the owner may have less flexibility in making future changes. Our tour guide said that no more seats may be added or subtracted from the stadium after 2012. Having landmark status, however, will make the Red Sox eligible for federal tax credits and also could give the team a greater say in how development unfolds outside of Fenway.

Some aspects of Fenway have remained virtually unchanged over the years and also will remain that way in the future, including the blue Grandstand Seats – the last stop on our tour. The Grandstand Seats originally were installed in 1934 and are the only wooden seats left in Major League Baseball. They are incredibly small, measuring 18 inches across, and even more uncomfortable. I’m only 6 feet tall, but my knees were red from being pressed against the back of the seat in front of me.

But the seats never will be removed, for a couple of reasons: A) The history associated with them; and B) The impact that renovating the seats would have on capacity. Our tour guide told us that, because the seats are so small and so jam-packed together and because rows go as wide as 30 seats, Fenway Park would lose 1,200 in capacity if newer seats were installed. Such a move would prevent 1,200 people from enjoying an event even greater than what I experienced with 100 others last Thursday.

"Raise your hand if you’re uncomfortable right now," our tour guide said.

Everybody raised their hands.

"Raise your hand if you’d sit in that seat for three hours to watch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park," he responded.

Again, all hands shot upward.