It’s hard to believe I’ve only been to two Worcester Red Sox games… okay, well, technically I went to games when they were the Pawtucket Red Sox for a few summers at the end of high school and early college. In 2021, the PawSox became the WooSox and thankfully moved about an hour closer to me. (For those who don’t know, the WooSox are the triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.)

Josh and I went to our first game together in 2024 and meant to go last year, but life got in the way. I found a weekend in August this summer where we weren’t busy and bought tickets for a 4:00 pm game. Thanks to the post I wrote the last time we went, I remembered that I pre-paid for parking, which was super helpful. I made sure I downloaded the parking app and had the tickets in my Apple wallet, and we were on our way.

It’s about an hour drive out to Worcester, and it was pretty easy to find the parking lot, about a five-minute walk from the stadium. One cool thing about the team is they have free shuttles that you can take from certain parking areas to the stadium. We took one last time—a street-legal six-person golf cart driven by someone’s grandfather through the streets of downtown Worcester—and just as we parked, one was driving through the lot, so we hopped on.

We got there about 15 minutes after the gates opened at 2:30 pm, and we hit up the team store. Josh wanted to get a t-shirt but didn’t find one he really liked, but I did get a hat that says “WooSox” on it in red script. Then we trekked up the stairs to the main concourse before walking around the stadium. There’s a Wormtown brewery stand out past centerfield, so we stopped to get drafts. Wormtown isn’t my #1 pick but the blueberry ale I got was pretty good.

Since it was a 4:00 pm game, we waited to get food closer to dinner time, so we headed to our seats. (For food, I got a hot dog and a pretzel, and Josh got a cheeseburger and a pretzel.) When I bought the tickets, I didn’t realize we were sitting so close to the field, six rows back and we were right next to the opponent’s dugout. The WooSox were playing the Buffalo Bisons, the affiliate for the Toronto Blue Jays.

For the first few innings, my main entertainment was watching a young guy try to repair one of the cushion seats in the first row in our section. The fan who was sitting there brought an usher over, and it seemed like the seat part was broken, so they called in the kid with the “seat kit” tool bag. I guess he didn’t have the right seat to fit or something because he was back and forth a few times before he finally fixed it.

At a triple-A game, there’s more of a chance you’ll see a major leaguer since it’s the step right below the MLB. I got to see three guys who have played for the Red Sox: Nate Eaton, Mickey Gasper, and Romy Gonzalez (pictured left to right). The next day, Gasper actually got re-called to the Sox, and unfortunately, we missed Trevor Story by a day, who was rehabbing during Sunday’s game.

The game got out to a 4–3 WooSox start, then the Bisons scored twice in the seventh before the WooSox tied it in the eighth. The game went into extra innings, but the Bisons scored two runs in the top of the tenth, and the WooSox couldn’t score, losing the game 7–5.

Since we were sitting on the opponent’s side (solely because it doesn’t face the sun), there were a handful of Bisons fans rows behind us. Then during one inning, a guy came over and asked if he could sit in front of us in the empty seat to record his son. His son? Austin Marozas, who was pitching for the Bisons. Kinda cool. (Austin went 1.2 innings, gave up one hit and walked three batters.)

The game got rained out in the seventh inning the last time we went, so we were happy the weather was absolutely beautiful that day and we were able to watch a full game (plus one inning). We walked back to the car, left around 8:00 pm., and were home after 9:00 pm to play with Cannoli since we had been gone for part of the day.