Scott Butherus' "View from the Cheap Seats" spring training blog, Mar. 12: “I’ve got standing rooms for 150,” says a slightly shady Italian with a cardboard sign proclaiming extra tickets. “Set Bucky Dent on fire for your extra ticket,”  I answer back. If Grapefruit League games really are meaningless, you sure couldn’t tell by tonight. The scalpers were out in full force, the stadium was sold out and the police were waiting outside in their armored SWAT vehicle. It may not have had the same atmosphere of playoff time at Fenway, but tonight’s game at City of Palms between the hometown Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees definitely had the air of a game that mattered. Luckily, I was able to get into the game without paying 200 bucks when a nice family with a spare ticket  was willing to part with it for face value and a flaming 1979 Bucky Dent card. (I knew that would sweeten the deal). Once inside I got to check out a view from the rightfield deck, affectionately known as the “white monster” because of the large number of retirees that can be found sitting along the rails during afternoon games. The deck is the latest addition to the Ftmyers_sox312_019park, and with its barstools and drink counters is designed to imitate the seating on top of the Green Monster in Boston. The rest of the stadium was packed, with rows of the Red Sox faithful spilling out into the “Standing Room Only” section of the concourse. As the sign inside the tunnel leading out from under the stands proclaimed, I was in the middle of  “Red Sox Nation.”
Pictured: 13-year-old Dakota lighting Bucky "Flippin'" Dent on fire.

This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2007.