Good news, Red Sox fans: Those Fenway Franks you chow down on come from a ballpark with one of the best food safety rankings in the nation, according to a new report.
Out of all of the Major League Baseball parks in the country, Fenway Park earned the second spot for the safest food, according to Sports Illustrated.
Sports Illustrated scoured thousands of public inspection records from city health departments in both the United States and Canada for an article published this week that ranked ballparks according to food safety.
Though the investigation did uncover some “concerning practices,” according to Sports Illustrated — Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles racked up nearly 250 total violations — those who choose to dine at Fenway need not worry.
In total, Fenway had 30 violations, according to the report, though only two of them were deemed “critical.” Fifty seven food stands were inspected.
Sports Illustrated noted that one big citation was “a dirty ice machine and a broken dishwasher.” One round of inspections also occurred when many of the stands weren’t serving food, but the magazine also scrutinized a midseason inspection from 2016 and found, “that there were actually even fewer violations last year.”
Fenway only came behind Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, which had only five violations from its 72 food stands. The only critical violation there was food kept at an unsafe temperature, according to Sports Illustrated.
The Tampa Bay Ray’s Tropicana Field came in last at number 28 with 241 total violations, 105 of which were critical, in which “violations ranged from the observed presence of live insects to black mold accumulating inside an ice bin.”
Fenway did offer some new snack options this year as well, so even though you wouldn’t think to head to a ballpark to get lobster poutine, Fenway’s is probably a safe bet.
