As the poets and pundits have long recognized, Fenway Park is the essence of spring in New England.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, April 10, 2004

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

BOSTON -- From the cockpit of his F-16 fighter, Lt. Col. T.J. Jackman has a unique aerial view of Fenway Park on Opening Day as he zooms over John Updike's lyric little bandbox at 400 mph in the ceremonial pre-game flyover.

Later yesterday, Jackman, a Vermont Air National Guard pilot, was among the first Red Sox fans to experience another sky-grazing view of Fenway, as he joined about 400 people watching the game from the brand-new seats atop the right-field stands.

"This is a great place to see everything," Jackman, of Essex Junction, Vt., said, as he sipped a beer after his flight. Fenway looks big when you are inside the park, but is not easy to find among Boston's buildings at 400 mph.

Jackman found the view better than the results of yesterday's home opener -- the Red Sox lost to the Toronto Blue Jays. As is the case with most other Red Sox fans, Jackman realizes that no matter what the score, there is little the Red Sox can do to ruin Opening Day on a sun-dappled afternoon at Fenway.

The Sox opened the new seats by inviting the construction workers, architects and others who worked through the winter preparing them to enjoy the Opening Day views.

Updike's famous ode to Fenway was written in 1960 on the occasion of Ted Williams' last game. "Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark," Updike stated. "Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg."

Things are in sharp focus from the 196 new seats, which are sold out for the season at $100 per ticket. Another 200 or so fans had standing-room only tickets to the new area. Every nook and cranny of Fenway is visible, except for the deepest slice of right field. The yellow foul pole in right -- Pesky's Pole to Sox cognoscenti -- seems so close one could reach out and touch it.

The new seats were designed to fit in with the historic nature of Fenway, which blends into the 19th-century, red-brick surroundings of the Back Bay, said Fred Groff, the architect who designed the new area.

"It gives variety to the experience of coming to Fenway, and at the same time blends in with the historic tradition of the park," Groff said. "It is this great old ball park that people think they know everyting about. Well, here is a new perspective."

The new seats certaintly blend in with the scale of the Back Bay better than the Prudential Tower, which looms incongruously over the history-rich neighborhood.

A towering Budweiser sign hangs over the section, and a large rectangular bar is nestled in with food concessions. The feel is of an outdoor bistro cum sports bar -- as if the late Eliot Lounge were to be reconstituted at Fenway -- where fans can eat, drink and mingle as they watch the game.

Richard Waterman, who supervised construction, which was done over the winter, wore the pride of a new father as he talked about the work. "This was a really great job even though the weather was really tough; it seemed like winter was never going to end."

"It looks great, especially the way it all fits into the rest of this great old structure," Waterman said.

The right-field seats may be new, but everything else about Opening Day in Fenway, which opened April 20, 1912, and is Major League Baseball's oldest ballpark, fit with tradition.

In a homogenized culture and global marketplace, Opening Day is an event that makes New England and its Hub distinctive. New Orleans has Mardi Gras, New York has Broadway openings and Washington, D.C., has presidential inaugurations. We have the ancient rhythms of a game played without a clock; time is measured in innings.

Even the big Fleet sign that hovers over center field is, well, fleeting, soon to be changed to reflect the New England bank's merger with Bank of America.

In this time of hope and redemption, Easter and Passover, the 2004 baseball season has a striking resonance for Sox fans.

No one had to mention the last Red Sox game of last year, won by the New York Yankees on Aaron Boone's 11th-inning home run in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. The hit that gave the New York Yankees their 39th pennant and extended Boston's championship drought.

No matter how good this year's team looks in the early season, Red Sox fans know two things to be true: That you can never have enough pitching and that not since 1918 has their team won the World Series.

Four times since the end of World War II -- in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 -- the Red Sox have played in the World Series. All four times they went to the seventh game before losing.

Yesterday, there was the usual sellout crowd, which witnessed a 20-hit, 15-run Fenway slugfest. It was a day for parents to keep their kids out of school. And the politicians and the corporate swells who left work early gloated into their cell phones to underlings back at the office.

"I think we can win it all this year," said Pete McGill, who was attending his 26th-consecutive Fenway opener. "We've got some piching with [Curt] Schilling and [Keith] Foulke.

Is this really the year? former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Waterville, Maine, native who owns a small piece of the team, was asked.

"I do think this is the year," Mitchell replied. "Of course, I say that every year."