It’s the first day of spring and Opening Day is right around the corner. But if you talk to people around Fenway Park, you’ll find not only that many are unaware when the baseball season starts, they can’t even name a current Red Sox player.
It’s been a long fall from the top for Red Sox Nation. The team that won 108 regular season games in 2018, then went on to defeat the L.A. Dodgers in the World Series, are a distant memory. Now even people who live near Fenway don’t know Opening Day is on Tuesday, April 9.
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“I feel like usually, other years, I kind of hear about it or people are talking about it, but this year I didn’t even know that they were like starting. I had no idea,” Samantha Perez said.
“I thought it was like a summer thing,” Marykathryn Montgomery said. “I didn’t know.”
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Disinterest in games extends to the stands — you could find ticket prices for regular season games as low as $11 on Vivid Seats on Tuesday.
“You know, when I was a kid, it was must-see TV when Pedro Martinez was pitching,” lifelong Red Sox fan Frank Marr said.
Experts say the 2020 Mookie Betts trade was a big turning point for fans. And things only got worse from there as Red Sox ownership decided to slow down their spending.
“They’ve become an afterthought in the standings because they keep finishing in last place. They’ve become an afterthought for fans who for sure have lost interest. And, most importantly, they seem to have become an afterthought judging by the actions of ownership,” NBC Sports Boston Red Sox insider John Tomase said. “Red Sox ownership has not spent money to put a representative team on the field and this is how you end up with this sort of apathy that we’re talking about a week or two ahead of opening day.”
The Red Sox will start their season away in Seattle on March 28.
