Since April 20, 1912, Red Sox Nation has descended on Fenway Park. And since last September, fans have been reciting the all too familiar mantra, ‘We’ll get ’em next year.’

While the mantra may be the same, for Opening Day 2003, the Boston Red Sox have pulled out all the stops and made a number of changes from past seasons.

Though Fenway Park and its vicinity have seen their fair share of alterations in recent years, this year’s most notable one has been the addition of seats over the Green Monster, Fenway’s left field wall.

The Green Monster seats are scheduled to open on April 29. However, construction crews have been working nearly around the clock to get the seats ready for use, possibly even this weekend, according to Red Sox officials.

The seats, perched in a place formerly reserved for errant baseballs, are already sold out. A limited number, however, may be made available to the public, according to a Red Sox spokesperson.

Even those unable to sit atop the Green Monster will be able to visit Yawkey Way, which will be closed to vehicle traffic. The street will be open only to fans with tickets, making a change from seasons past, thanks to last September’s addition of turnstiles at the end of the street.

Tickets to Friday’s game sold out in an estimated half hour on Feb. 1, according to a Red Sox spokesperson. In addition to Yawkey Way access prior to the start of the game, fans fortunate enough to get tickets will be rewarded with a 20-minute ceremony before the game starts, according to Red Sox officials.

This ceremony promises to be ‘really exciting,’ but Red Sox personnel were not willing to disclose the contents of the ceremony, saying they wished to keep it a surprise for fans attending the game.

Preparations for Opening Day will continue up to the last possible minute. Construction workers ran in out and of the gates of Fenway yesterday, finishing last minute projects in anticipation of the sold-out crowd. One worker used a cherry picker to hang red, white and blue banners displaying Red Sox championship seasons outside the park’s Yawkey Way entrance.

Preparations for the big game also extend beyond Fenway Park. Area restaurants and bars are preparing for Opening Day and owners said they anticipate large crowds.

Joe Ferrari, the general manager of Boston Beer Works, said the bar will open at 9:30 a.m. rather than its usual 11 a.m. opening time. Ferrari said he is also adding additional staff for the day.

‘We have four times as much staff on,’ Ferrari said, ‘and we open up early for the busiest day of the year. We are looking forward to it.’

Like Boston Beer Works, Jillian’s is also preparing for Opening Day by adding staff, but is not planning anything otherwise out of the ordinary.

‘We will be overly staffed,’ Tracey Wallace, the Marketing Manager at Jillian’s, said.

WEEI Sports Radio will be hosting its show downstairs at Jillian’s, according to Wallace. Among other events, radio personalities will be giving away tickets to future Red Sox games, and ‘getting the crowd excited,’ Wallace said.

‘It will be crazy,’ she said.

Wallace, like everyone else outside of the Red Sox organization, said she had no idea what the pre-game ceremonies will be like at Fenway Park. However, she did offer some speculation.

‘I heard J.Lo and Ben Affleck will be there,’ she said, laughing.

Whatever the opening event may be, the game — and its players — remain the focal point of the day and of Sox fans’ hopes. At the beginning of every season, Red Sox fans are often bestowed with the belief that something about this year will be different than the last. This one is no different.

‘[The players] are a lot better,’ Spencer Ziegler, a CAS freshman and Red Sox fan, said.

Ziegler specifically mentioned the improved hitting of the team, though he remained cautiously optimistic about the pitching of Derek Lowe and the closer by committee plan of the Red Sox general management.

‘If Lowe improves, the staff will be as good as it was last year,’ Ziegler said.

The only thing that could possibly dampen the excitement building in and around Fenway Park is the chance of rain in Friday afternoon’s forecast.

If the game is postponed because of rain, it will most likely be rescheduled for Saturday and played as the first game of a doubleheader, according to a report in The Boston Globe.