Update: The Red Sox announced Thursday that opening day will be moved to Friday due to inclement weather.
Dana Van Fleet remembers the press conference at the beginning of the pandemic when Gov. Charlie Baker announced a shutdown that, at the time, was supposed to only last three weeks.
"It was a devastating feeling, to be perfectly honest," said Van Fleet, who is an owner of the Cask 'n Flagon. "And that's when I was told that we were going to be closed for three weeks, right? Here we are a year later, and we're still dealing with it, and we were closed for a large portion of that."
The Cask 'n Flagon, which is one of the most popular bars and restaurants in The Fenway on Red Sox gamedays, was closed outright for about four months, by Van Fleet's estimate, over the course of the pandemic.
But as the Sox get ready to welcome back fans for the first time since the pandemic began for their Opening Day against the Baltimore Orioles, Van Fleet's spirits, along with the team's, are up, even if everything's not quite normal yet.
"It's a big moment for us," he said.
Inside Fenway Park, the pandemic will create a much different gameday experience than normal. Like other venues, Fenway will be limited to 12% capacity, which translates to a ceiling of about 4,500 fans — one of the lowest fan limits in Major League Baseball as the season gets underway.
Along with the cap on spectators, there's a slew of new health and safety guidelines designed to reduce the risk of the coronavirus spreading among fans.
Like TD Garden, which has already welcomed back Bruins and Celtics fans, people who attend Opening Day will be required to wear masks at all times unless they are eating or drinking in their seats. The team will use digital tickets on MLB's Ballpark App to cut down on contact, and it has divided the park into five "neighborhood zones," Fans will enter and exit the park at specific gates based on which zone they're ticketed to sit in.
Fans will also be required to fill out a health survey prior to entering the park.
Along with the updated safety guidelines, the Red Sox will be employing enhanced sanitation protocols, including the use of UV "disinfection robots."
For players, fans coming to a proper home game in Boston for the first time in over a year will be a welcome sight.
"Even the spring training games, the small amount of fans that were allowed there, it felt sold out at times. Even with them being spaced out and everything," said Red Sox pitcher Nathan Eovaldi, who will start on the mound Thursday. "But having our fans back in the park — our fans are one of a kind, for sure. Being able to go out there and perform with them out there, it's going to be fun for us."
Newcomer Kiké Hernandez, who the Sox acquired in the offseason, sounded ready to play at Fenway as a part of the home team when speaking to reporters.
"The view from the first base dugout is a lot more special in this stadium than the view from the third base dugout, I can tell you that," he said. "It felt special. You know, the magic of Fenway, you can actually feel it from the first base dugout."
For Dana Van Fleet and the Cask 'n Flagon, that magic will be especially powerful now that fans are returning after a long year away.
"It's a big step forward for the city of Boston, without a doubt," he said. "The City of Boston has been somewhat of a ghost town over the last year. It's been very sad to look out the windows of the Cask 'n Flagon and see nobody walking the streets and see no traffic for so many months. So to see that foot traffic, to see the hustle and bustle and to have Opening Day coming back to the city — it just lifts everybody up and makes everybody realize that we will get through this together, and it will be over soon."
