There isn’t much more room left. After the Red Sox crushing game seven loss to the Yanks last year (which by the way ranks as one of the top three worst moments of my life) it seems that loving the loser sox is the coolest thing you can do in the world of sports fandom, so get on now.

I, like many of my friends and all of my family, have been a sox fan from birth. “Born into it” as some would say, the 86 sox make up some of my earliest childhood memories. I can vividly remember the Dave Henderson homerun off of Donnie Moore in the ALCS back on that October Sunday. It happened right around the time when I started collecting baseball cards, which basically involved my picking out the Red Sox guys and throwing the rest into a shoe box. I went to game every year on my birthday and always brought my glove, once being so lucky as to have it autographed by Rick Honeycutt from the A’s.

I guess not much has changed. Now I go to tours of Fenway on off days, I have a beat up sox hat I always have with me, I sneak out of weddings I am at to the hotel bar to catch the game, and I will eat cereal for a week if it means I have an extra $50 to get some nosebleed seats to a Tuesday night game in July.

I wrote 4 more paragraphs on why I hate how Red Sox nation is becoming over-run with “Johnny Damon Come Latelys” and how I resent them as a self-described true fan, but I am going to cut it off here. Go Sox, and I guess it could be worse…we could live in Oakland.

Oh…and enough with that awful Tessie song. It is horrible, and so are the god damned Dropkick Murphys.

How can you not…is this not the greatest photo of Manny ever? Found on Boston.com

So having recently attended an Oakland A’s game in Oakland, I must have gotten onto the Oakland A’s marketing email list when I purchased the tickets online. This afternoon I received some marketing material from the A’s promoting their upcoming series with the Red Sox. Now this prompted two immediate questions. The first being, how in the hell are people in Oakland so disinterested in baseball, that the A’s need to have promotional nights just to have people show up to see two playoff bound teams face off in September? The second question was even more interesting. Would it in fact be cheaper, or even comparable in price, to fly to Oakland to see the Sox take on the A’s than to see a similar game here in Boston. Let the research begin. In order to keep things on as even a keel as possible, I attempting to measure only like items against one another and not factor in every last penny that could and would be spent. This is on a macro level and for "could it really be" purposes.

First let’s figure out the cost of attending this game in Oakland. I looked for the game on 9/7/04, a Tuesday night game that just happens to be $1 taco night AND team picture night. Does it get any better than that? I don’t think it does. I checked tickets, and wouldn’t you know…1 first base line seat, 20th row….$26. So we have a ticket for $26. Now for the flight(s). A bit back, I saw a special package for $99 flights Boston to Oakland, which would make this a no-brainer. Can’t seem to find them now, the best I can come up with on such short notice is via Orbitz and is $357 round trip. Not too bad. Now we need some transportation to and from the airport to the stadium and back, along with some fine concessions. Since the same BART station services both the Network Associates Coliseum and the Airport, let’s estimate on the high side and say $10 round trip – 3 miles each way by car. Lastly, concessions. Remember, it is $1 taco night. So let’s say we splurge on 3 beers ($7 each) and 5 tacos. Add $26 to the bill. Here is the summary:

- 1 Ticket $26
- 1 Round Trip Flight $357
- 1 Round Trip BART Pass $10
- 3 Beers $21
- 5 Tacos $5
—————–
Total: $419

Now for the hometown boys. Again, for comparison sake we will try and keep things as parallel as possible. Let’s go with a weeknight game against another good team from the West. Let’s go with tonight’s game against Anaheim. Now as any local knows, Fenway is forever sold out so forget the walk-up tickets. And come on, we need 20th row, 1st base side. This calls for a ticket broker. Ticketsnow.com has what we need. Two field box seats on the first base side that are almost identical to the Oakland tix. And what a steal at $165 each. Now, all we need to do is get there and enjoy some concessions. We won’t even count the tolls and gas, let’s get right to the parking…and that’ll be a cool $30 if you want to be within 2 miles of the park….$25 if you park in Natick. Once at the park, let’s get the same 3 beers ($6.50 a piece) and instead of 5 tacos, we can go for 5 famous fenway franks here in Boston for a total of $16.25 ($3.25 each). That should bring us up to speed….to the calculator for the tally:

- 1 Ticket $165
- 1 Parking $30
- 3 Beers $19.50
- 5 Hot Dogs $16.25
—————–
Total: $230.75

Well…the tale of the tape clearly shows that although the ticket prices are worlds apart, the flight makes the trip to Oakland a full $188 more than a game at Fenway….but still, the fact that it is even a thought puts the price of a sox game into perspective. If only I had caught that Jet Blue special for $99….