While the team is in Fort Myers, Fla. for spring training trying to figure out how to beat Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees, Red Sox officials are continuing to improve Fenway Park by adding 195 new seats atop the right field roof that have already proven overwhelmingly popular with fans.
The new seats, scheduled to be ready for opening day on April 9, will be situated around 50 tables in a rooftop plaza above the retired numbers of former Red Sox players, according to Red Sox spokesman Mark Rogoff.
“The tables are in the shape of a home plate, and there will be four seats around it that swivel,” Rogoff said. “It’s pretty cool.”
Fans were allowed to register by Monday for a lottery to buy a share of the 4,500 rooftop tickets. Eighty thousand fans applied for the seats, said Red Sox Business Chief Michael Dee told the Boston Herald.
Those selected were required to buy tickets in groups of four – one table’s worth – or up to four standing room tickets for a single game. Individual tickets for tables are not available.
The price for a table ticket is $75 per seat for most games, called “blue games,” but the price jumps to $100 per seat for the more popular “red games,” which include opening day, whenever the Sox play the Yankees and inter-league games against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, Rogoff said.
Each table, not each individual seat, also comes with an added $100 voucher for food and beverages from a menu including cheesesteaks, barbecued ribs and other items, with servers bringing the food to the tables.
“These seats are unique,” Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino said in a press release. “This neighborhood of the ballpark had more room to stretch elbows, to mill around and to enjoy social interaction.”
The new plaza will also have 150 standing-room tickets available. The standing-room section will be similar to the one behind the seats built above the Green Monster before last season. Like the table seats, prices for the standing room tickets vary, from $25 for “blue games” to $30 for “red games.”
“It will be a back row, sort of like a railing, and people can lean on that,” Rogoff said.
Construction of the newest seats in the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball is only the latest step in a 2003 plan to improve Fenway, said Planning and Development Coordinator Paul Hanlon. The plan also included last year’s seats above the Green Monster, the expansion onto Yawkey Way and the “big concourse” behind the bleachers.
When the club built about 300 new seats above the Green Monster last season, fans could watch the game from above the 37-foot-tall left field wall for the first time in the park’s history.
The park, which opened in 1912, is famous for its small size and cramped quarters. But the Red Sox will not be increasing the number of tickets sold with the addition of the roof seats. The park is limited to a capacity of just under 36,300 by the fire code. Hanlon said games rarely even reach that limit because of congestion. Instead, the construction is intended to create more space and convert some of the standing room tickets into actual seats.
“We are converting standing room to relieve congestion,” Rogoff said. “Not only do we want to add seats, we want to add space and relieve congestion, and [the roof-top seats are] part of it.”
Before the improvements began, the only standing room section was behind home plate, Hanlon said.
“You couldn’t fit the whole capacity in,” he said. “We couldn’t sell over a certain number of standing room seats. We still can’t. You can’t fit people in, and it’s up to the discretion of the Red Sox how many they want to sell depending on the demand.”
While 80,000 fans registered for the lottery on Monday, some were still skeptical about the new seating.
The Sons of Sam Horn is an online message board “dedicated to discussion of all things Red Sox” that is known to be full of die-hard Red Sox fans. They even played a role in helping to bring Curt Schilling to the Red Sox.
“Nice to force people to buy $8 worth of food and bad beer for $100,” wrote one SOSH member who identified himself as The Gray Eagle. “I’m not going to do it, but as long as the team puts this revenue back into player payroll, I have no problem with it.”
Others were more optimistic, but still unsure of the seating.
“My guess is there will probably be [a] ton of drunks up there,” wrote pedro1918. “Probably me. Unless beers are $25 a pop. That being said, I’ll go once. If I love it, I’ll go again.”
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