It’s officially Opening Day Week (or just Opening Week, maybe? We can workshop it). We made it, gang. Hope springs eternal! Everyone across the baseball community is wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, optimistic about their team and their goals for the 2026 season. The final days of spring training are wrapping up, and soon enough we’re going to be watching legit games that count.
Before we embark on that months-long journey, though, I wanted to provide one more thought about the exhibition games. We’ve
got plenty of time to analyze the ins and outs of a 162-game season (and, with any luck, more than a few postseason games). Frankly, this blog post was going to be in that ilk: Sonny Gray’s pitch arsenal (0-2 Man City), the official decision to have Marcelo Mayer start at second this season, something like that.
That was the case until I saw footage from Baltimore on Sunday.
Atypical setting for a ballgame at this time of year, no?
The Orioles played the Nationals this weekend at Camden Yards, as the club unveiled new additions to one of the best parks in the sport. Instead of pumping out another Spring Training game in *googles where the Orioles report every February* Sarasota, they went back home with just days before the season begins in earnest.
That’s a cool idea, and I think the Red Sox should do that at least once a spring at Fenway as well.
This type of game isn’t exactly novel nowadays; the Braves opened up their new park a few years ago with an exhibition game against the Jankees, for example. Teams out west—think the LA clubs, Houston, etc.—have started doing this in the last few years (or maybe they’ve done it for years and I didn’t notice it until recently).
Wouldn’t it be great, though, if Sox fans had a more affordable alternative to regular season games?
Days and nights out at Fenway aren’t cheap; the Red Sox’s median ticket price ranked as the fifth-most expensive in the league last season at $132, according to Yahoo. Even on the cheaper end, you’re talking about $40 for a bleacher seat for most weekends (and even higher if, say, those losers from the Bronx are in town). That’s not nothing, and that isn’t even getting into the costs of concessions and souvenirs and the like.
Not everyone can afford to consistently make it out to America’s Most Beloved Ballpark during the season, so if there’s a way to open the gates up for folks right before the season starts, why not? FSG makes a few extra bucks and the cost for a game that doesn’t count shouldn’t be too prohibitive. No matter the game context, folks get to enjoy Fenway (or get squeezed into a grandstands seat, depending on who you ask) at a cost that isn’t an arm and a leg. It’s a special place; I don’t care if that sounds corny, it’s my favorite place to spend time. Even if the experience at this time of year isn’t the same as a summer night, it could still be a way for people to get a taste.
While our favorite baseball team is a business, it’s also a staple of this community. People build relationships and share memories at Fenway. You yourself reading this, you’re a part of that experience. Fans shouldn’t be totally priced out of taking part in that.
You might be thinking that the weather up here makes it prohibitive. Of course, our climate here in the Bay State isn’t as nice as it would be in the current Spring Training States of Florida and Arizona, or in the states where this type of practice is consistent such as California or Texas. Fenway’s hosting their first series in less than two weeks, though; is early April up here really so much different than late March? How hard can this be?
The other, bigger part of this topic involves the state of ticket prices for live events in general. Of course tickets for games or concerts is way too high, and of course a larger conversation should be had on that front. I don’t disagree with that notion. I’m just trying to appeal to an idea that is, at least, marginally better. Everything is shit nowadays—we can’t have anything nice without having to subscribe to it, and half of the stuff that’s pushed in front of is absolute slop. There’s a premium price put on everything. The cost of living only continues to climb while people’s wages don’t keep up. Maybe something like this, playing an exhibition game once or twice a spring at Fenway, can make life for some Red Sox fans a little less shitty.
I don’t have all of the larger answers (well, I guess I do: make everything, including Red Sox games, more affordable), but seeing other clubs host exhibition games at their regular home got me thinking about the same thing happening in Boston.
It feels like a slam dunk idea. I say they should do it.
