Red Sox President Sam Kennedy said that no season ticket-holders "have given up their seats or asked to be moved to a different section because of the expanded protective screens soon to be installed at Fenway Park," according to Peter Abraham of the BOSTON GLOBE. Team officials this week will meet to see the latest renderings, but the tentative plan is to "extend the netting to the edge of the dugouts." The net "would be no taller than the current backstop, which is 9 feet, 8 inches, and could be a bit shorter" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/24). Red Sox Chair Tom Werner said that new screens "would be in place by the home opener on April 11." Werner during a town hall-style discussion also "told fans that he believes the National League adopting the DH is inevitable." Meanwhile, despite last year's results, an "optimistic" Red Sox Owner John Henry said, "In all honesty, I felt good about last season. There’s one thing that we’ve learned the last few years -- it’s getting more and more difficult to predict anything" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/24).
TICKET SALES STILL STRONG: The Red Sox "have sold 1.7 million tickets, down 2 percent from the same point last season." Kennedy said that it is "unusual for a team coming off a last-place finish to sell such a high volume of tickets so early." He added that the Red Sox "plan to host another football game at Fenway in November, following up on the success of the Boston College-Notre Dame game" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/24).
