E-Mail This Article to a Friend What Sox fans can expect this season at Fenway BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

I have been coming to the Fenway area for ball games since August 1984, and the Boston Phoenix home offices have been located down the street from the ballpark since the fall of 1987. Therefore, I feel I am enough of an "expert" regarding the neighborhood to offer you carpetbaggers some helpful tips when it comes to staggering into this part of town to visit your favorite ball club. A lot may have changed since you were last in the vicinity, and that has nothing to do with the aura surrounding the team itself after last fall. There have been changes to the landscape, renovations to the park and its surrounding area, and subtle alterations to the whole Fenway Park experience that you’ll need to prepare for — whether you’re coming for the home opener or to any other of the 80 dates on the schedule.

As of March 12, the Red Sox had sold 2.4 million tickets for the upcoming season, which is more than they have ever sold prior to Opening Day. All mini-season-ticket and group-sales packages are sold out, and if you believe the tote board in the team’s ticket office, there are no tickets available for any games until July 18 — and from then on, it’s only scattered single and obstructed-view seats. What’s that mean to you? It means, What are you waiting for? If you don’t have connections at the ready and want to see the team defend its title this year, order your tickets right now — before the Visigoths converge on the park on Monday and snatch up all the remaining 100,000-plus tickets that are left.

A side note: the team’s ticket office has been refurnished, with ornate floor-to-ceiling windows out front. Nice touch. On the down side, however, I’d swear that they lost some space in there. The quarters seem even more cramped than before, which will likely necessitate longer waits in the queues outside. But at least now you’ll be able clearly to see everybody in there while they wait in additional lines.

Here’s the single best piece of advice I can give you: do not drive into the Fenway area. I’m beggin’ ya, and this has nothing to do with the signs set for posting at the area lots: PARKING $50. The entrepreneurial lot attendants can charge this exorbitant amount because there are fewer spots available in the neighborhood. Why, you ask? First of all, one of the bigger lots, which stood across from the Shaw’s on Boylston, is no more. They have paved paradise (and put up a parking lot) before, but now even the lot’s gone, and in its place is a big hole in the ground. Actually, it was a three-acre crevasse all winter; now it’s two stories full of steel girders that will serve as the skeleton for the new 17-story "Trilogy" complex of stores and luxury apartments.

Not only are those spaces gone, but so too are the spaces on Kilmarnock Street, since they’re now reserved for the burly guys in hard hats building the growing fortress between Boylston and Brookline. And if traffic weren’t congested enough in the pre-game hours, note that there has been another traffic light added on much-traveled Boylston Street (near the Burger King). Also, the sidewalks on Lansdowne Street have been widened (to accommodate added cherry saplings and old-style lanterns), which means that there is barely enough room for a car to navigate its way down that already-busy street.

So drive in at your peril, and if you do, be prepared to sit in traffic and pay through the nose when you’ve reached your destination. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. For other ways to get to the ballpark, go to www.redsox.com and click on "Fenway Park" in the navigation bar (and click on "Getting to the Park"). You’ll thank me later.

Fenway won’t open until about 1 p.m. for the 3 p.m. home opener, but that won’t stop places like the Boston Billiard Club down the street from opening at 7 a.m. for "pre-game" festivities. Across the street, the space formerly occupied by the BB Wolf barbecue joint is now empty, but famished/thirsty revelers can find another gin joint closer to the park — actually, at the park — in the form of the newly constructed Game On! Sports Café. As of four days before the home opener, the spot (run by the Lyons Group, which oversees most of the trendy Lansdowne Street clubs) looked light-years away from being finished, but perhaps some magical down-to-the-wire renovations can be made in time for the huddled masses on Monday. Hard to say what it will look like (a sports-bar motif is a safe bet), but it will take up the spot across the street from the well-established Cask ’n Flagon, and will have a lower level where a bowling alley once resided. (The lumber that once made up the alleys is now part of the bar up on the Budweiser roof deck in right field.)

You’ve now safely made it to the neighborhood and imbibed a bit prior to the game. It’s time to head in, but before you do, be sure to note the new sidewalks around the Brookline Avenue stretch, the impressive refurbishment of the brick façade, the aforementioned improvements to Lansdowne Street, the new-and-improved Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, and, of course, the newest banner that hangs near the Gate D entrance on Yawkey Way. It takes half a block to get from the red "1918" world-championship banner to the next scarlet one, but it’s worth the walk (and the wait).

Those folks who have tickets in the first- or third-base grandstand will notice grand improvements to the concessions situation, and those who have always struggled to walk the narrow passage behind the first-base sections (14-17) will likely see it significantly unclogged this season. That’s because a new patio area has been added behind those seating sections, and while there won’t actually be any tables or chairs set up for conversing or consuming, it will provide an open-air getaway and sanctuary for those seeking to evade the madding crowds (or, for that matter, the game in progress). It will not, however, provide shelter from the elements, as the term "open air" indicates.

When you do decide to focus on the game, two things will jump out: the new signage on the left-field wall (hinting that in the years to come, the Green Monster will eventually turn into the massive billboard of advertising placards that existed prior to 1934); and the field itself. Something looks different about that field!

Well, Sherm, the field itself was completely torn up and replaced with more drainage-friendly components, and the turf itself is lower than the prior field was. (Don’t worry; you’ll still be able to see the ballplayers without standing up and peering down a well.) What was primarily just huge piles of dirt throughout the off-season is now a pristine diamond (one that, with any luck, will offer more true hops for infielders). What will likely be most noticeable for returning patrons will be the rounded edges to the foul-territory portions of the infield and coaches’ boxes.

All these internal and external improvements are merely confirmation that the ownership group is committed to improving and staying at Fenway Park at least until the ballpark’s 100-year anniversary in 2012. It’ll likely be a joyful experience upon your return to Fenway this season (particularly on Opening Day), but not an inexpensive one, so bring your wallet(s) and a devil-may-care attitude.

On the other hand, perhaps you’re one of those who resists change, and will be off-put by all the traffic quagmires, the pushy crowds, and the inherent financial burden that a day at the ball yard will place upon you. Who could blame you?

In that case, by all means, watch the game in the relative safety of your own home, and allow your faithful correspondent to take those more-trouble-than-they’re-worth Opening Day ducats off your hands.

Just e-mail me below, and I’ll pass along your greetings to the new-and-improved Fenway Park in absentia — and somehow find a way to enjoy myself.

Click here for the Phoenix’s special Opening Day supplement, and here for Mike Miliard’s Red Sox blog. "Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com