Red Sox push for more seats They would add 650 for All-Star Game By Gregg Krupa, Globe Staff, 04/23/99 The Red Sox want to install about 650 new seats at Fenway Park for the July 13 All-Star Game in order to accommodate the expected flood of media and fans. Spokesmen for the Red Sox say the extra seating, which must be approved by the city, would be used only for the All-Star Game, and that there will be no attempts to sell the seats for any other games or to make them a permanent addition to the 33,871 capacity of the stadium. "We're trying to do what we can to accommodate the demands being placed on the smallest park in the major leagues by a lot of media representatives, Major League Baseball, and, at the same time, accommodate our fans, who will want to be there,'' said Dick Bresciani, the Sox' vice president of public affairs. Part of the additional seating would be used only by the media. It would consist of prefabricated boxes that would be lifted on to the roof -- two each on the first base and third base sides of the stadium. The two boxes would adjoin, providing seats for about 150 reporters at both locations. Even with the extra seats, some 100 of the 700 reporters expected to attend will be confined to seats and televisions in the interview room at Fenway Park. In addition, the Red Sox want to install sets of bleachers at two gaps in the current layout of the stadium -- along the first base line at the so-called Canvas Alley, which provides access to the field for the machinery used by the grounds crew, and in right field, at the gap in the seating between the grandstand in right field and the bleachers in center field. Those bleachers would provide seating for a total of 350 fans. The necessary request for permits was filed with the city Inspectional Services Department yesterday, city officials said. The permits, which are under review, would allow the Red Sox 90 days to assemble, install, and remove the seating, and restrict the use to the All-Star Game, according to Julie Fothergill, a spokeswoman for the department. Only three All-Star Games after 1960 have been played before fewer than 40,000 people. Two of the previous small crowds -- 39,071 in 1990 and 38,359 in 1962 -- were played at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The third was at Fenway Park in 1961, when 31,851 attended. The smallest attendance in history at an All-Star Game was in 1936 at Braves Field in Boston, when 25,556 attended, according to the A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.