What’s new at Fenway this season

While most of Red Sox Nation is paying attention to Florida and spring training, a small army of construction workers at Fenway Park is racing to finish the changes that started just a couple weeks after last season finished. They've got less than a month to go, and with all the work still to be done, they'll be lucky if the dust is settled by Opening Day.

ADVERTISEMENT

It's part of the ongoing metamorphosis of Fenway from a classic but old (not to mention cramped and outdated) ballpark to a place proud of its charm but looking to bring a day at the ballpark into the modern world, for players and fans. And nothing better represents that change than one little room being built just behind the Red Sox dugout.

It's the players bathroom. That's all.

Just the place the players and coaches can go to, well, go, during the game. For the first time since Fenway Park was built, the bathroom for the players will have a sit-down toilet. Not exactly luxury, but believe it or not, the bathroom it's replacing had only a urinal. Other needs required the player or coach to go all the way back inside to the clubhouse. As Janet Marie Smith, the team executive in charge of all the changes taking place, says, "Fenway's got funky that we want to save, versus plain old funky that could go."

Of course, a lot more is being done at Fenway that just putting a new players bathroom behind the dugout. The area behind the dugout and below the stands on the first-base side is being enlarged to house a new batting cage the players can use during the game. Until now, they've had to share the one under the center field bleachers with players from the other team. And it'll have a video room where coaches and players can analyze a hitter's swings, a pitcher's sequence, and all sorts of in-game replays that will help them make adjustments as the game develops. They've been doing this for years, of course, but from a room much further away the players and coaches couldn't get to as easily.

Outside the park, fans approaching from Kenmore Square will find a new face on Fenway. The old "Jeano" building at the corner of Brookline Ave. and Lansdowne Street that at various times was home to a bowling alley, a pool hall, a car dealership, an auto repair shop, and a stationery store, is gone. Crews are hurrying to finish the "Game On Sports Cafe" that will open out onto the corner of Brookline and Landsdowne, opposite the Cask 'N Flagon, and stretch under the stands to serve fans in the left field corner. It'll be open year round, with large classic brick arched windows and a sidewalk café.   Continued...