In a visit to The Journal, Boston president and CEO Larry Lucchino says the Ocean State is as pro-Red Sox as any in N.E., and the numbers back it up.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 11, 2004

BY ART MARTONE
Journal Sports Editor

PROVIDENCE -- Red Sox or Yankees? The debate has raged locally for generations, with some people -- Yankee fans, mostly -- claiming Rhode Island is an evenly divided border state in baseball's un-civil war.

But the Red Sox themselves know better.

"Rhode Island is as passionate about the Red Sox as any state in New England," Larry Lucchino, the team's president and CEO, said yesterday morning in a visit to The Journal . . . and he trotted out the numbers to prove it.

"Our television ratings on NESN in Rhode Island," he said, "are up 52 percent from last year. We averaged a 9.6 rating for each of our telecasts in April and May, and our single biggest game -- a Sunday game against the Yankees [on April 25] -- drew a 15 rating."

To put those numbers in perspective: The highest-rated network television show this season, CSI on CBS, had a 15.5 rating, and the highest-rated national sports telecast last week was 5.0. The 9.6 number, said Lucchino, is three or four times the level that baseball teams achieve in other markets.

Lucchino led a contingent of Red Sox officials in what is becoming a yearly visit to The Journal. (Principal owner John Henry came to town last year.) The club says it doesn't know exactly why viewership has jumped so sharply in the Providence market, but Chuck Steedman, the Sox' senior director of business affairs, thinks one reason may be that casual fans -- drawn in by last year's thrilling playoff series against the A's and Yankees -- have begun watching more.

It was one of a number of topics touched on by Lucchino yesterday:

Fenway Park

Although Lucchino says no final decision has been made on whether to attempt to build a new stadium, management is planning a series of short- and long-range improvements to Fenway Park that indicate the team will be playing at Fenway for the forseeable future. Ideally, Lucchino said, stadium capacity -- currently slightly over 35,000 -- would reach 38,000 or 39,000, a number he feels can be achieved "without altering the ambiance of the park."

Fenway's present atmosphere is one of the things that make the park so appealing, not only to Red Sox fans, but also to baseball fans worldwide.

"It is -- and I think will stay -- America's most beloved ballpark," Lucchino said.

The Lucchino/Henry/Tom Werner ownership group has added additional seating on top of the left-field wall and the right-field roof since purchasing the team in 2002, and has also vastly increased the amount of concourse space beneath the seats. Lucchino said the team is exploring ways to add more seats, and one of the areas being looked at is the third-base/left-field roof just to the left of the Monster Seats on the wall.

The team also plans to re-do the field after this season "at a cost of a few million dollars." The project will improve drainage and give the team "better luck with rain delays," Lucchino said.

Additional park revenues

Steedman heads Fenway Enterprises, which is trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Red Sox and of Fenway by promoting the park as a place for businesses and groups to hold meetings and conferences.

Lucchino also said the club offers tours of Fenway Park. These tours are typically held each day throughout the year; the club estimates that "hundreds of thousands" will take the tour this year.

Tickets

The Red Sox are working on a streak of 94 consecutive sellouts, but, in an effort to prevent fans from being shut out completely, hold about 500 to 1,000 tickets for day-of-game sale, Lucchino said. These tickets are put on sale four hours before each home game, Steedman said.

Although ticket prices are comparatively high, Lucchino said, the club has held family discount days in April and May; makes available standing-room tickets, which he described as affordable; and sells some bleacher seats for $10 or $20 apiece.

Free agents

Four key players -- pitchers Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, catcher Jason Varitek and shortstop Nomar Garciaparra -- will become free agents at the end of the season, and Lucchino says the cost of re-signing all of them is prohibitive. "We want to sign each of them," he said, "but we probably won't sign all of them.

"We don't have the financial wherewithal," he said. "People frequently associate us with the Yankees in terms of revenue. But the Yankees are here," he said, holding his hand over his head. "We're here," he continued, holding his hand at shoulder level. "And the rest of the teams are here," bringing his hand down slightly below the chest. "We're actually closer to everyone else than we are to the Yankees."

Lucchino wouldn't speculate on which of the free agents the Sox were likely to retain, but said the team had suspended its policy of not negotiating during the season in the hopes of getting deals done with one or more of the players. "There are no talks going on now," he said, but "[we] are actively receptive" to feelers from the players and their representatives.

Staff writer Neil Downing contributed to this report.