New England Trip, Part Five

Saturday the 21st marked 27 weeks of pregnancy for me, finally to the third trimester. We got up super-early to pack up and check out, having the hotel hold our bags. We all took the subway up to Fenway Park, where we redeemed our GoBoston cards for tickets to the 10:00 tour. 

Fenway Park on game day (vs. Yankees)

The tour was packed—sold out, probably due to being game day and a Saturday, not to mention a Red Sox/Yankees game. The tour was pretty good, although at times hard to hear since we often were stuck at the back of the group with our strollers. The guide was using a portable microphone, but sometimes the people at the front of the group wouldn’t move forward or squeeze in tighter so we would be kind of stuck around the corner or behind something. Still, we got to sit in some of the original wooden seats, plus go up on top of the Green Monster (a 37-foot wall in the outfield that is apparently famous).

Noah and Chris in the original wooden seats

From the top of the Green Monster (they added seating up there a few years ago)

Dads and boys with statue of Ted Williams

"Red Sox teammates for seven seasons, but best friends for a lifetime. … They left an unmatched legacy in Red Sox history. … To Red Sox fans the world over, they are simply known as Bobby, Ted, Dom and Johnny."

On the tour: original ticket booths

Noah and Boston Mickey

Chris and David Ortiz's (a DH for the Red Sox) Audi R-8

It was a fun tour, especially the part where we saw the red seat dedicated to some guy who was reamed in the head by a Ted Williams home run in 1946.

The famous red seat at Fenway, which designates the spot where the ball nailed a guy in the head after Ted Williams, in 1946, hit the longest home run ever hit into the bleachers. (The tour guide then mentioned how close Josh Hamilton's HR came to this seat just a few nights before. GO RANGERS!)

While telling the story, the tour guide mentioned that the closest he’s seen a baseball hit that far since that incident was just the other night, when Texas was playing at Boston and Josh Hamilton hit one of the many home runs scored against the Sox that night. When he mentioned Texas, we cheered loudly! He kind of rolled his eyes, but we didn’t get beaten up or thrown out. 

After our tour, we walked over to a little hamburger joint for lunch, then Chris and I had to get going back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head to the airport. We managed to time the subway perfectly and made it back in record time, much to Chris’ relief (he’s a bit panicky when it comes to getting to airports early). 


After checking our bags, we went through security, but Chris was detained for a search of the carry-on bag we had filled with souvenirs, my laptop, and some shoes and toys. Chris had purchased a miniature souvenir bat, made of wood and maybe a foot long, at the team store across from Fenway Park. 

Our bat is similar to this, but with the 100-years logo. 18" long.

We already have a Texas Rangers one for Noah, and he thought it would be cool to start collecting bats from the different teams. Without thinking twice of it, we had stuck the toy bat into the carry-on suitcase. Mind you, I had already made Chris move the blueberry jam into one of our checked bags, just in case the TSA wanted to give us flak about it. Apparently, none of us anticipated that a miniature souvenir bat could be construed as a deadly weapon, so the TSA agent regretfully confiscated it. 


Chris was so angry I thought he would be removed from the flight—I think he was turning into the Hulk. I’m sure it wasn’t the $10 bat, but rather the sentimentality of buying it at Fenway Park the day after the 100-year anniversary of the park. Also, Noah really liked the bat and asked if Daddy would show him “how to do it,” which Chris promised to do when we got home. Ooh, Chris was just fuming. 


So I took Noah’s hand and waddled my prego self over to the TSA agent, asking him if he could just check with someone else to make sure there was no way we could carry the toy on the plane. The poor guy was very sympathetic and asked his supervisor, who shook his head and placed the bat into the “prohibited items” bin. I asked the agent if he could show me a list or something of the prohibited items, pointing out exactly where the mini bat fell into that category. He told me it could be considered a clubbing device—baseball bats, golf clubs, etc. He explained that his boss had insisted that it was not allowed, so I asked, in my most pathetic, pleading voice, to speak to his boss. He took me over to a small group of TSA agents and supervisors, where I began to cry as I asked them to explain why my son’s toy had to be confiscated on the day we bought it at Fenway Park. It didn’t take ten seconds for me to change the guy’s mind, so they unlocked the bin and fished out THREE of the souvenir bats, asking which one was mine. Another of the supervisors, a woman, told me that considering my demeanor, it didn’t seem as if my family was likely to be using it as a weapon, but asked that we please keep in in the bag while on the plane. “Yes, ma’am, we will,” I said, wiping the tears from my cheeks and pulling Noah close, as he looked on with his best pathetic, puppy-dog eyes. 


I triumphantly handed Chris our bat and he placed it back in the bag, steam still pouring from his ears. (Now, as I write this, we are on the plane headed back to D/FW, Noah has been passed out the whole time, and I’m sure the TSA agents are praying they don’t see a breaking news story of an American Airlines 737 being taken hostage by a souvenir bat-wielding madman and his pregnant wife and three-year-old son.)


SIDE NOTE: Chris looked again at the TSA guidelines, which of course do not mention toy bats at all. However, they do list several things that are and are not allowed to be carried on. Some of the TSA-allowed items:


Ice skates
Screwdrivers (7" or shorter)
Scissors (4" blades or shorter)


Doesn't that boost your confidence? I mean, I could certainly do more damage with an 18" wooden bat than with a sharpened speed skate blade.