I went to Fenway for the first time in a dog’s age the other night and watched the Sox lose to Cleveland on a series of Jed Lowrie missed-opportunities. While the outcome was unfavorable, it seems Fenway has not lost any of its charms or ambiance.

I was stashed with a comrade up in the right field grandstands, under a pall of the upper deck (which did nothing to warm an already frigid evening). No cup holders up in section 5, no heated seats, no fan-friendly, turn-of-the-century amenities like those that soothe the spoiled bosoms of the “fans” in Arizona or St. Petersburg. Denizens are satisfied with a cocktail of baseball, bellowed obscenities and the rank perfume of spilled beer.

By the fifth inning my neck felt like an un-greased door hinge and my arse, which I had painstakingly managed to coerce into a plank of wood designed for an anorexic toddler, had assumed the properties of a cast iron bowling ball.

In the middle of the inning, mostly in an attempt to stave off paralysis, I decided to embark on a mission into the bowels of Fenway in search of a cold brew and a hotdog. I flopped and cajoled my way down aisles, across motley assortments of hooligans. I stepped on a little girl’s toes and earned a look from her 300-pound mother that would’ve made Tek blush. And as I made my way down the cement steps, hitting holes like a disoriented tailback, I remembered again why I love Fenway. There is no place like it. In a baloney-infested world, Fenway is a preserved slice of raw authenticity.

Screw the new-frangled, imitation, retro faux-parks. Screw the new Yankee Stadium with its 5 kruzillion luxury suites. And screw Hank Steinbrenner on general principle. Long live Fenway, with its cramped seats, smelly patrons, and overpriced dogs.