Second Class Citizens Sit in Fenway's Cheap Seats

That's how it must feel anyway. Having spent much of our entire sporting lives in the cheap seats, we find this story particularly disturbing.

Today's Boston Globe explains that fans in the grandstand can only get up, disturb everybody around them, and wait in a very long concession line to purchase their beer. However, the beer vendors are selling their goods in just about every other part of Fenway. According to the article, "[b]eer vendors at Fenway Park can ply their trade in the field boxes, the dugout seats, and up in the pavilions, areas where customers pay more for their tickets. Fans elsewhere have to fetch their own."

The article goes on to note that this is not the case at other Major League Baseball stadiums or at Gillette Stadium. Part of the problem is that the Boston Liqour Licensing Board is not interested in expanding seat side vending at the park. The other problem is the Red Sox - who fear that increased vending in the cheap seats would add to congestion in the aisles. The article quotes team spokeswoman Susan Goodenow as saying, "fans don't mind getting up" to waste 2o minutes standing in line for a beer. Of course they don't, their Red Sox fans.

The liquor authority sums it up thusly: "It's elitist."

And yes, that is a picture of one of New York's finest selling beer in the cheap seats of Yankee Stadium.