The Red Sox are placing on sale "Sox Pax" ticket packages as well as single-game tickets to 18 selected April and May games on Dec. 8, when they host their annual "Christmas at Fenway."
Single-game ticket sales primarily will be handled online at redsox.com or by calling 24-hour touch-tone ticketing at (617) 482-4SOX beginning at 10 a.m. Dec. 8. Fans purchasing Sox Pax may do so online. Fans with disabilities may call (877) RED-SOX9 and hearing-impaired fans may call the team's TTY line at (617) 226-6644 to purchase accessible seating.
Attendees to Christmas at Fenway will be selected from a pool of fans who register at redsox.com between noon today and noon Monday. Fans selected to attend the event will be notified via e-mail. All of those who attend will be able to purchase tickets. Attendance will be limited because of construction at the park.
The Fenway event will include Red Sox players and alumni as well as round-table discussions with club officials.
Most single-game tickets - including all Green Monster seats and right-field roof tickets - will go on sale in late January and February.
Season tickets remain capped at about 21,500 full-season equivalents, and the waiting list is nearly 7,500.
An artful Dodger
The Dodgers made it official yesterday, hiring Charles Steinberg as executive vice president for marketing and public relations. "Charles Steinberg's contributions to the Red Sox have been important, innovative, and enormous, and his legacy will be enduring," Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino said in a statement, saluting a man who has worked for him for 27 of the last 28 years. "He has been in many ways the team's heart, conscience, imagination, and artistic soul." Steinberg's tenure with the Sox was clouded during the stormy period in which general manager Theo Epstein temporarily left his position, with Steinberg fingered by some as a source of unflattering media portrayals of Epstein, who was negotiating a new contract with the team. Steinberg has maintained he was not involved, but the affair left a permanent strain on their relationship.Bullpen candidate
The Sox recently signed minor league free agent pitcher Lee Gronkiewicz and added him to their 40-man roster. Gronkiewicz, 29, is a 5-foot-10-inch righthander who had a 6-3 record with a 2.41 ERA in the Blue Jays organization, and as Baseball America noted, had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 83-10. He'll be bidding for a job in the bullpen, a role he served for Team USA in the last two seasons . . . Former top draft choice Daniel Bard was named a top prospect in the Hawaii Winter League after finishing with an 0-0 record and 0.60 ERA. Bard, who struggled badly as a starter in his first pro season (3-7, 7.08) still had control issues in Hawaii (15 K's, 11 walks) but made strides while being used in relief . . . The Sox have not approached manager Terry Francona about a contract extension, which all parties assume will get done. Francona recently underwent surgery on his right eye, repeating a procedure he had once before. The manager said he has turned down most offseason appearances, in contrast to 2004, when he admitted he took advantage of a chance to make some extra money. "I showed up in that spring training and I was tired, as a lot of people were," Francona said. "That's not good. I have a responsibility and an obligation to do a job. I've really said no to just about everybody."Bling it on
Sox chairman Tom Werner ran into new Dodgers manager Joe Torre at the press conference announcing that the Sox and Dodgers will play a benefit exhibition game at the Memorial Coliseum in late March. "He asked me if we were going to design World Series rings smaller than the ones in '04," Werner said. "I told him, 'Not if David Ortiz has anything to say about it.' " The game will benefit the Dodgers' team charity, ThinkCure, which is patterned after the Jimmy Fund. The grandfather of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt was among the Jimmy Fund's original benefactors as an owner of the Boston Braves . . . Curt Schilling acknowledged that the Sox are well-positioned to consider a six-man rotation next season. "It's something that's been discussed to a certain degree," he said at the screening of the World Series DVD Monday night. "This is almost a perfect storm in a sense, when you consider the candidates and the schedule and each individual scenario that could potentially be involved in it. But that six-man rotation turns into four in a day or two in spring training when someone goes down. It'll fit, whatever needs to happen when the season starts. We've got six big-league starters. It's certainly something exciting to think about."
