Red Sox fans make sure their pals get the message
Baseball fans may have held their breath as the Red Sox took on the Cleveland Indians in Fenway Park on Friday night. But they did not hold back on sending text messages.
Nearly 267,000 text messages were sent and received on
The messaging peaked between 9 and 10 p.m., when Verizon registered almost 66,000 messages in the area, "most likely declaring victory" by the Red Sox, who won 10-3 over the Indians in the first of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series, said David Thomson, a Verizon spokesman.
The messages came to and from cellphones inside the ballpark and from nearby streets, bars, and restaurants, he said.
It was not clear whether the Friday event set a record for the number of text messages sent and received during a Red Sox game, but the message traffic that night was much higher than before the game, Thomson said. Between 4 and 5 p.m. Friday, Verizon registered 8,500 text messages to and from Verizon phones in the area.
Two Verizon transmitters captured the messages: a permanent site at Fenway Park and an additional transmitter mounted on a specially designed truck, which Verizon had brought to the area ahead of the series, Thomson said.
The company usually dispatches the temporary transmitter, which the company calls a "cell on wheels," during natural disasters and public events attended by so many Verizon clients that the permanent transmitter is not enough to handle the number of calls and text messages - for example, the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
Verizon Wireless is not the only provider that offers text messaging service to its clients. AT&T could not say whether there was an increase in text messaging during the game. T-Mobile did not return a request for information about the number of messages their subscribers sent and received in and around Fenway.
