Fenway Park's Other Beer-Drinking Problem


I went to three Red Sox games this season, and all three were losers.

So were the beers: Heineken, Bud Light … I couldn’t bring myself to drink a Miller Lite. I tried.

After the third game, I joked with a friend that I had to stay away from Fenway — like a lot of (older) Red Sox fans, I still give in to superstition, to that fog of paranoia that even a little, mundane action within my life, (e.g. removing a piece of lint from my Sox ball cap) could suddenly swing the balance of Red Sox Nation, taking a sudden, hopeful winning streak in the opposite direction.

In essence, I’m still living in the 2003 season.

I spent a lousy $8 a pop at each of the games I went to, and I feel utterly cheated now that I know that the off-duty pitching rotation was drinking beer, too, probably something colder and better than what I had in hand — and getting paid while conning me into thinking they were getting paid to win.

Hey, Larry Lucchino and John Henry, I bet those guys you’re paying millions for drinking on the job weren’t buying from the concession stand. Do you? They had the good stuff bought on their own dime (or, I guess, yours) while you were soaking me for a Heineken that I wanted no part of.

You guys owe me. You also owe the fans who fork over a day’s pay to come to your shenanigans.

The only thing worse than drinking overpriced beer is being forced into a narrow, lousy selection of overpriced beer. It’s time to change your miserable slate of drafts. It’s also time you lower your prices.

I’m glad that in recent years I have been given the option to take a walk from my not-so-great seat in nose-bleed land for a draft of Harpoon. At least you have some sense of what’s right in Boston. But c’mon, $8? How much do they charge for beers at soccer games, anyway?

I don’t mean to get all Occupy Fenway on you two, but realize that my people aren’t drinking Sam Adams Utopias in their off time and paying for box seats. We deserve some modest consideration.

Hint: You can start by kicking the Heineken to the curb.

Larry, John, if you’re going to leave it to others in the post-Theo era to clean up the mess, ahem, the pitching line-up, certainly that’s your business.

Maybe I have been reading too much Shaughnessy this week, and not enough Greenlee. Yet, I gotta ask: Isn’t it time to clean house and make everything right?

The Beer Drinker is a writer and creator of the Beer Drinking Report. E-mail us at bdr@bostonmagazine.com. You can friend BDR on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @iambeerdrinker.