Thanks for the memories, but now it's time to go...

First off, I love Fenway park, to a true Sox fan (not a pink hat) walking into Fenway Park is similar to an art connoisseur walking into the museum of Fine Arts. I get caught up in the nostalgia, until I have to find a parking space, pay $40 for that parking space, pay $7.00 for a half a cup of beer, sit in a seat that is fine for someone who is 3 feet tall, not 6"1 225 pounds. Fenway will be 100 years old in 3 seasons, and that will be something to see and quite the landmark to see Fenway Park reach 100 years old.

With that being said ground should be broken the next spring on a new stadium. I am nostalgic as the next guy and appreciate the rich history of this park, but time is a vicious dictator, and in this day and age 100 years is to long for a professional sports stadium, especially in this market. We have been conditioned by generations of Sox fans before us to look at Fenway Park as a shrine, a lineage of thought passed down the line since 1912, and one that I subscribed to, until I went to Camden Yards in 2003. When I could sit down comfortably without wrapping my legs around the person next to me, which would be fine if it were Alyssa Milano...um...or my wife, yeah my wife, not Alyssa Milano, but it is neither at Fenway, but usually a fat drunk who is more concerned with trying to get on TV than watching the game. During a rain delay when everyone runs for the concourse, it feels less like a ball park and more like one of those "how many people can you fit in a phone booth stunts."

I still remember the first time I walked into that stadium, the stale air wreaking of beer, peanuts, and hotdogs . I remember thinking every person in America must have been in that stadium that day, I had never seen so many people in one place. But the magic happened when I walked out and saw the crystal blue sky, the Shawmut Bank sign over the Monster, the famous Citgo sign which to this day is a famous Fenway landmark, but more impressively to me was seeing how white the Sox uniforms were and how big the players were. When I saw Wade Boggs, Rich Gedman, Dwight Evans, and Jim Rice live, I thought I had seen it all at eight years old. To listen to my Nana talk about how my Grandfather would go down to the park with a cooler filled with sandwiches to watch the doubleheaders, I couldn't help but think what it must have been like to see the likes of Ted Williams, Johnny Peksy, Jimmy Foxx, Bobby Doerr, et al. My Mom still talks about how my Grandfather continued his love of the team as he took my Mom and her siblings to the Patriot's Day game and then to watch the finish of the marathon, and saw the likes of Carl Yastrzemski , Tony Conigliaro, and Rico Petrocelli. As recently as last week I was at Fenway watching the Sox take batting practice prior to a game with the Yankees, while Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter warmed up in the outfield. I looked at the Green Monster in Left field and looked at the dents on that giant homerun killer which make it look like a giant golf ball, I couldn't help but think of the caliber of the legends who are responsible for those dents, and it makes it hard to think about another Fenway.

I think the Boston Red Sox ownership tandem of John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino (the brain trust as I call them) have done an outstanding job of preserving the ball park and bringing it as current as they have by adding thousands of seats over the last several years, but how much space is left, really, what's next seats in the press box...well maybe that might work out alright after all. But you catch my drift.

All joking aside, I think the brain trust need to be commended for breathing new life into a stadium kept alive only by memories of teams who broke our hearts annually, and prior to 2004 when the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918, was hope for a championship again at Fenway. They have been able to satisfy the masses by not tearing down Fenway but renovating the old ballpark, they may have unknowingly laid the ground work for getting a new stadium and doing it the right way. The fans have embraced the changes, and seemingly look forward to what changes will be made in the off-season. I am hopeful one of the changes in my lifetime will be a new ballpark. But it has to be done the right way, the can't be too overzealous when setting prices, they have to make sure the amenities are right and not overdone, they have to make sure the new stadium doesn't take away or bring into question the integrity of the game.

There have been several teams who have made some big mistakes in the new stadiums, and they both happen to be in New York. The most talked about in 2009 is the new Yankee Stadium which has overpriced seats they can't give away; it is a batting practice field where there have been an obscene amount of homeruns, 119 in the first 34 games of the season...to the point where Johnny Damon is a power threat. To the point where June 18, 2oo9 saw a historic game...the first game at the New Yankee Stadium where there was not a homerun hit. Really, that is what makes historyat a new ball park? A game with no homeruns, that's history, really?

The Red Sox ownership is in a situation where they can take what's right with Fenway and work that into a state of the art Stadium. New doesn't mean bad. Some of the newer stadiums have more space, more amenities, more to do with the family, heck some even have parking AT the stadium, not in private lots 2 miles away from the stadium where the fans spend half the time worrying if your car is even going to be there when you get back, exit routes that allow fans to stay and enjoy the game so they don't have to leave in the fourth inning to beat traffic and ensure they are home before sunrise. Some of the amenities a new ballpark would have would be very similar to what some of the changes to Fenway have been already, new concourses, new meal options, an outside experience on Yawkey Way, but the difference is it wouldn't be forced into an already cramped space.

The critics of the plan to build a new Fenway talk about the mystique of Fenway, the charm of Fenway, and the memories of Fenway. These are the same critics who said the same thing about the old Boston Garden, but I ask those folks, what is the better venue to watch a game? Obviously the Shawmut Center, uh I mean the Fleet Center, I mean the TD BankNorth Garden. It isn't the age of the stadium that gives a stadium charm and personality, it is one thing...winning and superstars. All of a sudden the new Garden has charm and personality and that is because there is a championship banner hanging from the rafters from a championship won in that building...that is charm. The Red Sox have recent Championships, Superstar players, and they win. I can't see that changing with a new home.

What is to say if a new Fenway is built, the Monster can't come along or Pesky's Pole (or Fisk's Pole, that one didn't work out to well for the brain trust), and that will be a satisfactory way of pacifying the nostalgia needs of the "Save Fenway" brigade. Once opening day rolls around in the new stadium, the pain of losing Fenway will subside the way the pain of a child losing their pet goes away as soon as Mommy brings home Fido II. Once the wins, and shutouts, and homeruns, and championships start rolling in the new Fenway will be entrenched in our hearts, but it is getting there that will be the hard part, convincing the city of Boston for the help needed to get this project going and the biggest obstacle may be just be deciding to make the call to do it.

This ownership team has the unfavorable task over the next several years to make a hard decision, keep the house of Yaz, or turn the page and begin a new chapter in the rich history of this franchise. Time marches on and real estate is is often times left in the wake of an uncaring, unattached, unstoppable force; Players retire, Horses are put out to stud, and buildings are demolished. It is the natural progression of things, and Fenway has given generations of Bostonians lifetimes of memories, but her best days are past and it is time to put her out of her misery. So to Fenway, I love you, and thanks for the memories, but now it's time to go off into and claim your place in Baseball folklore.