Ballpark Digest

CONCESSIONS
Red Sox management continually expresses displeasure with the state of concessions at Fenway Park, saying that the concourse is too cramped and prevents fans from spending more on food and drink.

That's hogwash.

There is a ton of concourse space at Fenway Park, and the Red Sox have crammed it with every sort of concession stand imaginable. Especially spacious is the concession space past the outfield bleachers, where there's plenty of room for an abundance of concessions stands, a set of picnic tables and enough stand for hundreds to mill around. (If the Red Sox were truly concerned about the clutter, they'd shut down a concession stand or a credit-card hawker and give folks even more room to walk about.) This area was once filled with television trucks, but the Red Sox cleared them out before the beginning of the 2003 season and installed what team management calls the most spacious restrooms in the major leagues.

As a result, you're never too far away from a concession stand at Fenway Park. The vast majority of them focus on the staples. Don't leave the park without downing a Fenway Frank ($3.50), surely one of the best hot dogs served at a ballpark. Yes, the franks are boiled, but hot dog does not meet white-bread bun (and in Fenway, the buns aren't your standard hot-dog bun, but soft split-top white bread buns) until you order your Fenway Frank. The result? Delicious -- about as delicious as highly processed food ever gets. Almost as good: the $4.75 Italian sausage with peppers.

You'll want to down that hot dog with a beverage. There's actually a fairly limited number of beers available, with Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light on tap for $4.95, and Amstel Light and local brew Sam Adams on tap for $6.25.

There are some unique offerings if you take the time to look. Variations on the Fenway Frank include the $5 Boston Dog (served with cheese and chili) and the $5 New York dog (served with sauerkraut). If you want your meat a little purer, check out the Hilltop Steak House, where the steak-tips sub goes for $6. You can go native with the Legal Sea Foods clam chowder ($5). When you're ready for dessert, there's the Hood's ice cream cone ($3.50) or that New England staple, fried dough ($4.75). This isn't the greatest variety we've seen at a major-league ballpark, but let's be real: after a Fenway Frank and a brew, you really don't need a whole lot more.

If your tastes run to the more pedestrian, there are stands serving nachos, peanuts, Jr. Gino pizza, soda and popcorn.

Even more variety can be found out on Yawkey Way, which is closed to traffic an hour before game time. Most of what's found inside the stadium, like Fenway Franks, can be found on Yawkey Way. In addition to beers mentioned above, you can find Harpoon IPA on tap for $4.75 and Presidente in the bottle. There are sandwiches of all sorts: $7.75 Cuban sandwiches at the El Tiante booth, BBQ beef sandwiches for $7.75 and chicken cheese steak sandwiches for $6.25. And don't forget the Italian ice or the fresh-roasted peanuts served by the paper bag, a bargain at $4. On a hot night, standing on the asphalt on Yawkey Way isn't the most fun, of course, but later in the evening it's a pleasant place to take a short break from the action.