I was lucky enough to come into four tickets to the State Street Pavilion Club at Fenway Park for Saturday night's game against the White Sox. That they were a bit of an upgrade over the bleacher seats we have been sitting in most of the year is an understatement!

We decided to have dinner at the club. There is an indoor area with table service dining and a full bar. We arrived at around 5:30 and were seated immediately. There was a very pricey buffet which we decided not to go for. The most interesting entrees were seafood and none of us (except A.) are big seafood eaters, so we decided to order off the menu. A. and I both had an excellent burger (with some of the best french fries I have had recently) and the kids both had enough chicken fingers and fries for about three meals. None of this was cheap either ($17 for the burgers and $8.25 for a Sam Adams), but not way off what I expected for ballpark fare and it was fun to eat in the club.

We then went outside to check out our seats. From a comfort perspective, these are among the best seats I have ever had at Fenway (admittedly, that's not saying much). The seats were big, wide and had plenty of legroom. They were even padded! We also had waitress service, so someone went off and got our drinks and snacks for us, which was very cool. The view from the deck was great. We were to the first base side of home plate. Here's a cell phone picture of what we could see.



The game itself was great as well. Despite some earlier threats of rain, it was just about a perfect night for baseball at Fenway. We had the luck to catch Michael Bowden's first major league start. Bowden, of course, is another young (21) pitching phenom in the Sox system, spending most of the year at Portland before making some appearances with the Pawsox.

He pitched quite well, going five innings and only giving up two runs. In fact, he outpitched Chicago veteran Mark Buehrle, who only went 4.2 innings and gave up seven runs to the Red Sox. The Sox offense was a doubles machine, hitting six in total (Ellsbury, Bay, Pedroia, Lowrie and two by new addition Mark Kotsay). Kotsay had three RBI and Bay and Lowrie had two each. Jeff Bailey, subbing for Youkilis who was sick with "flu-like symptoms" hit a home run. Ellsbury hit a triple in which he just turned on the jets after rounding second. He is so fast it's amazing to watch.

The bullpen was also very impressive, with single scoreless innings from Javy Lopez, Manny Delcarmen, Justin Masterson and Hideki Okajima. The bullpen, an apparent weakness earlier in the year, appears to be peaking at the right time.

In the end the Sox took and 8-2 decision from the White Sox. I could certainly get used to sitting in those seats more often!