Ready for Her Close Up.

Monday afternoon the 2009 baseball season opens at Fenway park but until then ants are busy putting the finishing touches on the off-season repairs. This year the work included water-proofing the lower bowl, adding more seating and standing room along the right field line, and fixing up the club offices. Seriously: just looking at the photo makes me break out in a grin.

Fenway of the Future.

Yesterday the lack of anything interesting to write about had me contemplating making up news. That's not the case today.





Next season Fenway park will feature 560 new places to sit. And if Lucchino has his way, you'll be able to sit in those seats for the 2012 All-Star game. Even though Fenway did just host the All-Star game in 1999, I think it would be a nice gesture on the part of MLB to let them do it again for their centennial celebration.

It's a Claim to Fame. I Guess.

All day long on the MSN homepage, there was a picture in their slide show of a hot dog to accompany an article on how to be cheap at a ballpark. I kept thinking: I must be really hungry because that hot dog looks really good.

As it turns out, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (aren't you glad such a council exists?) Boston fans will consume 1.7 million hot dogs at Fenway Park during the 2008 season. It's a total second only to the Mets. The Mets will sell more than 2 million hot dogs this season. [aside: I think that is perfectly reasonable. I don't really like hot dogs but I do like Nathan's, which is the brand they sell down in Queens.]

According to the honorable council the 30 million hot dogs that will be sold in major league ball parks this season would round the bases 41,776 times. By my calculation, the hot dogs sold at Fenway would round the bases only 2,361.13 times. Or consider: The hot dog eating champion last year ate 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, it would take him 214 days 15 hours 30 minutes and 54.5 seconds of continuous eating to consume all of those hot dogs.

That's a lot of hot dogs.