Good seats available: Just $495 a pair

It's true: The Red Sox are selling off bleacher seats.

The team has told its season ticket holders that at the end of this season, it will rip out then replace Fenway Park's beat-up and beer-soaked, but still beloved, bleacher seats.

But before they install about 6,500 new bleachers, the Red Sox are offering loyal fans the opportunity to take home one of the most colorful parts of the park.

Already hundreds of people have pledged to buy pairs of seats, which are selling for $495 to season ticket holders and $550 to the general public.

"The response has been overwhelming," said Sam Kennedy, the team's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "People are really excited about it."

The new seats will "look and feel like Fenway," Kennedy said, "But they'll be a little more modern and a little more comfortable."

To the relief of devoted fans who have endured rainy home games, they will also be waterproof.

Of course, not every seat will be sold.

The team plans to hold on to its revered red bleacher seat.

That seat has been around, in one form or another, since 1946, when Ted Williams hit one of the park's longest home runs, right into the bleachers. The seat he hit was painted red to celebrate the Splendid Splinter's blast.

Last night, as word of the bleacher sale spread, fan Bobby Bissett, who has spent years watching the team from the fifth row of section 37, said that as much as he loves the Sox and the bleachers, he probably won't take advantage of the Red Sox' offer, because the team cannot guarantee which seats he'll get.

"If I could get my seats, I'd think about it, but everyone else's seats have their own gum stuck to them."

CHRISTINE McCONVILLE