Red Sox are building a winner
More upgrades made at Fenway
Her hair tucked into a Red Sox hard hat, Janet Marie Smith, the grande dame of ballpark design, stepped through the scaffolding and ladders and construction crews in Fenway Park yesterday afternoon to show off some historic plumbing.
A new facility for Manny Ramírez, the next time he elects to take a bathroom break behind the Green Monster?
"We haven't gotten to that yet," Smith said with a smile that didn't fade at a wisecrack.
Manny will have to make do, but for the first time in the 95-year history of the ballpark, female fans sitting in the third base grandstand will have their own restroom (22 fixtures), the latest confirmation by the Red Sox that they understand a good time at the ballpark requires more than just investing in a new Japanese pitcher or two.
According to Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, the ownership group has now invested more money in ballpark upgrades as they enter their sixth season -- "well over" $100 million -- than they did in Daisuke Matsuzaka. (The
The unfinished bathroom was only one feature of the new "third base deck" carved out by the Sox out of space previously occupied by the 1914 Jeano Building, which formerly served as the offices of NESN. Construction crews knocked down the wall that separated the park from the building to create a spacious area that should prove as welcome to fans sitting on the third base side as the first base deck built two years ago.
No more will fans have to navigate a narrow path behind the grandstand seats in left field. Instead, there will be added concessions and new standing-room positions with a drink rail, which should allow the sale of several hundred more standing-room tickets, according to Lucchino. There also will be an oversized window overlooking Brookline Avenue in the back of the concourse, which should help mitigate the smell of stale beer and sausages.
"Every year, we do things, but this one, in many ways, is a personal favorite," Lucchino said of the third base deck, "because it likely will affect most people who come regularly. You'll see something that is going to affect almost everybody who sits along the third base line."
The Sox summoned the media yesterday to take a look at the work in progress, executive vice president Charles Steinberg conceding that "this was a way to get some mid-January publicity." Not incidentally, single-game tickets go on sale Saturday, 22 days before pitchers and catchers are scheduled to conduct their first workout in spring training.
While the interests of "Joe Fan," Steinberg employing the traditional term memorably transformed by Keith Foulke into Johnny from Burger King, are being addressed most by the third base deck, there are a couple of other touches that should create some buzz. The Sox are using some of the new space to build a batting cage for visiting teams, who no longer will have to walk out to the center-field bleachers to take some extra hacks. The wrinkle here is that the batting cage abuts a wall of the restaurant Game On! That wall will be replaced by a one-way mirror, Smith said, that will allow the restaurant patrons to watch opposition players work on their swings (A-Rod under glass). On non-game days, Smith said, the restaurant will rent out the cage for its customers to use.
(One suspects it won't take long for Joe Torre or another visiting manager to demand curtains.)
In the space previously occupied by the visiting batting cages, behind the green garage door called "the Yaz door" by Smith, the Sox have plans to open a bleacher bar and grill. It won't be ready for the start of the season, but the restaurant, which will open onto Lansdowne Street, will have a view into the ballpark (but not during games).
The Sox also are taking considerable care of the swells, redoing 26 private suites along both foul lines, adding more luxury for those fans who like their hardball served to them on a silver platter. New exterior seating, completely remodeled interiors, new front-window design -- it's all part of a two-year plan to renovate all of the park's private suites.
The new construction benefits another long-suffering class of Fenway occupants -- the ushers, ticket-takers, and security people who will now have their own locker room facilities, after having dressed in cramped storage rooms (the women in storage closets). Those may not be quite the "Dickensian conditions" that Lucchino called them, but it might help one understand why some Fenway ushers were more likely to snarl than smile.
The press box is being expanded to accommodate a media scrum that will increase exponentially by the dozens of Japanese media planning to cover Matsuzaka, and there will be a new staircase from Yawkey Way to the back of the grandstand, roughly in the same area the old ramp used to be before the .406 Club was built. The Sox used two new contractors to do the work, which is expected to continue until the April 11 home opener: William A. Berry & Son Inc., of Danvers, and the Boston office of Gilbane Building Company.
All of the architectural work since the Henry-Werner-Lucchino ownership group bought the club has been done by D'Agostino, Izzo, and Quirk. The vision -- and magic dust -- comes courtesy of Smith.
The extra space allows the Sox to increase the legal capacity of the ballpark (not the same as seating capacity) to 38,805, with the ultimate goal 39,928, a 10 percent increase over the decades-old capacity. Sellouts last season averaged in excess of 36,000, Lucchino said, and should be bumped up by a few hundred this season.
Gordon Edes can be reached at edes@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
