After attending one of this past weekend’s baseball games at Fenway Park, it almost seems like the Boston Police Department has more baseball fans than the city of Boston. At least their overwhelming presence during the games certainly made it seem that way.
Showing up with a force of a reported 876 officers, more than three times as many officers than during last year’s baseball playoffs, some fans wondered why such a large police presence was even necessary. People almost were frustrated to find that there was no parking allowed on Commonwealth Avenue between Marsh Plaza the area east of Kenmore Square.
Yesterday’s game at Fenway was all but meaningless for the Yankees, and by the fifth inning, it was meaningless for the Red Sox, too. By the sixth – when the score was 10-1 – both teams had removed all of their starters, and the game looked more like an exhibition game than a playoff game.
By the end of the game, many fans had already left, and on the way out, there seemed to be more policemen than fans in most areas.
While it is admirable that the city seems committed not to repeat its mistakes of last fall, the Police Department still must use some common sense and not frivolously spend money whenever the Yankees are in town. There has not been a riot after a regular-season game in recent memory (if ever), and while the weekend began with some potential for high drama, by Sunday afternoon, it was gone. But the police weren’t.
The 876-strong force is the largest in the city’s recent history, meaning that a significant amount of tax money must have gone toward paying police overtime salaries for their presence this past weekend. Also, the parking spaces that were left vacant caused a large inconvenience to visitors and residents, when the threat of vandalism or car-flipping was non-existent. If people can park there during normal Red Sox games, they should have been allowed to this weekend.
Perhaps the police felt it necessary to boost the number of officers since all forms of “less-lethal weapons” have been shelved after an Emerson College student was accidentally killed by a pepper-pellet gun during last year’s playoffs.
When this year’s playoffs begin, more police should be in place. But they should be there in numbers that actually represent the threat of rioting. Last year, the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years – if they beat the Chicago White Sox in the Division Series this week, it would be tough to expect similar riots. Of course it makes sense that the city wants to avoid the tragedy and embarrassment it was subject to last October, but what’s embarrassing is Boston’s bill for the forces it had out this weekend.
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