You Too Can Take Batting Practice At Fenway…
Wanna take the Fenway Park experience to a whole new level? Well, the Red Sox will allow groups of fans to take batting practice in the visitor’s cage.
However, with everything it comes with a price…
For the first time at Fenway, fans will be able to enter the visiting team’s batting cage and take swings in the same practice area used by the likes of Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada. Lyons and the Red Sox say they aren’t aware of any other Major League Baseball team with such an arrangement.
Naturally this will all occur when the Sox aren’t at Fenway, and naturally it will cost, starting at $50 to $75 per head. Here’s how it works: You book a party of at least 20 people - birthday, corporate, bachelor, whatever - at Game On!, which is on Fenway prop erty but outside the gates. The package includes food, the batting cage - complete with bats, helmets, and a pitching machine - and cheers and jeers from your friends, who can watch through a huge one-way window in the basement bar.
The Red Sox and Lyons, who leases the restaurant space from the team, say they hope the experience will attract more year-round traffic to the Fenway area.
“It gives fans an opportunity to creatively use that space when it’s not being used by the visiting team,” says Jonathan Gilula, vice president of business operations for the Red Sox. “It’s the first time in Red Sox history we’ve done anything like this.”
There’s another novel plan in the works: When the Sox are at Fenway, restaurant patrons will be able to watch - free of charge - the visiting team take batting practice through that huge window in the bar, which is now covered by a NASCAR mural. Lyons hopes to have the window ready by opening day on April 8.
Wow. As much as this sounds like a great experience, it’s another way for the Sox to make money off the most fanatical fan base perhaps in all of sports.
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