Bring the Family
WHO Globe Style editor Hayley Kaufman and her son Nate, 4 1/2
WHAT Watching baseball
WHERE McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, R.I. pawsox.com
For a grown-up, being priced out of Red Sox games at Fenway is frustrating. For a 4 1/2-year-old baseball obsessive, it's heartbreaking.
Thank goodness then, for the Pawtucket Red Sox. Yeah, there's no Green Monster, none of the heart-pounding anticipation of walking up the ramp at Fenway and seeing that emerald field unfurl. But for my son, Nate, McCoy Stadium is a miraculous place where he can see real baseball players and eat hotdogs and not totally understand the rules but cheer like crazy nonetheless.
How's this for a perfect game-day scenario? We called on a Friday afternoon during school vacation week and got box seats for that night. Cost per ticket? A mere $10. (General admission for kids is only $4.) We left our car in a huge lot across from the stadium for the comically low price of $2. Really.
As we settled into our seats, the PA system started blaring "Centerfield" by John Fogerty. The sky was rosy pink, and the breeze just a bit on the cool side. "I see Jason Varitek!" Nate said. My husband and I chuckled and explained that these were the PawSox, not the Red Sox, honey, even though their uniforms look the same and, sure, sometimes big-name players do cycle through.
But somebody was causing quite a stir on the field. Flashbulbs popped. TV crews scrambled. Turns out, Mike Lowell was playing DH for the PawSox that night, rehabbing after an injury. When they announced Lowell's name in the lineup, the crowd erupted with glee, including a certain 4 1/2-year-old I know. [Hayley Kaufman]
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