The Red Sox yesterday announced that ticket prices for '17 would go up by an average of 2.9%, and the increase will "affect virtually all seats at Fenway Park outside of the upper rows of some sections of the grandstands," according to Peter Abraham of the BOSTON GLOBE. Tickets will go up by "at least $1 and in some cases by as much as $5 per game." Of the 26 ticketed sections at Fenway, 19 "have price increases." There is a $5 jump for the "first five rows of the field box seats and the entire upper bleachers." Next season's 81 home games are "divided into five tiers, with prices based on each game’s desirability." Ticket prices have "gone up in three of the last four years." This season the club went 93-69 and won the AL East. Ticket sales "start Dec. 10 at the annual Christmas at Fenway event." The Red Sox drew 2,955,434 fans in '16, eighth in MLB (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/3). In Massachusetts, Jen McCaffrey noted the ticket increase is the "largest since" the '14 season, when prices were raised an average of 4.8% (MASSLIVE.com, 11/2).
WINTER IS COMING: In Boston, Chad Finn wrote under the header, "Dave Dombrowski's Offseason Will Serve As A Referendum On Whether The Red Sox Should Have Kept Ben Cherington." Finn does not think the Red Sox "made a bad decision hiring Dombrowski" as their President of Baseball Operations, as he is an "accomplished and respected executive." Finn: "I’m just not sure it was the right one, or any better than the status quo at the time." Dombrowski "walked into a dream situation." He "took over a big-market, big-payroll team that not only had a stacked farm system but had already developed a core of a cost-controlled young players." The Red Sox at the end of this season lost both Senior VP & GM Mike Hazen and VP/Amateur & Int'l Scouting Amiel Sawdaye to the D-backs, and both are "widely respected." The Red Sox "didn’t hire a GM to replace Hazen." Dombrowski handled the regime change "gracefully a year ago and didn’t clean house immediately, but it’s apparent now that he favors a small government in his front office" (BOSTON.com, 11/2).
