Last night in the northeast, it rained and it rained hard, resulting in the postponement of games in both Boston and New York. As a result, I didn't get to see a game at Fenway Park; just as I arrived in Section 17, they called it.

I was there Wednesday night, though, and I'm happy to report that my favorite ballpark is still alive and well. It's funny. I spent the 2000 season here, working on a book. And during my travels around the country that summer, when I'd tell people what I was doing, they'd ask, "So is this the last season for Fenway?"

Hardly. While it's true that, two years ago, the Red Sox's then-owners told everybody within hearing distance that 1) the franchise simply couldn't remain competitive in old, decrepit Fenway, and 2) a deal for a new ballpark was just around the corner, the fact is that both were lies. Not to put too fine a point on it.

The Red Sox, or rather the men who ran the club until this year, waged a massive public-relations campaign with utter disregard for the truth, and it almost worked. They had nearly every member of the Boston media believing that the team needed a new ballpark (to keep up with the Yankees), and that anyway the ground under Fenway Park literally couldn't support the structure for more than a few more years.

Poppycock. The Red Sox sell out virtually every game and it's been proved that they can charge just about whatever they like for tickets. As for the geological issues, that was always a canard invented out of whole cloth.

But like I said, the media bought the fiction. Hook, line, sinker, bobber, and any other piece of fishing tackle you can think of that I haven't.

And now the new owners take over, make noises about what a wonderful place Fenway is ... and poof like magic, none of those independent thinkers in the press are agitating for a new $750 million ballpark. I don't mean to rip my colleagues, really I don't. But the truth is that while they (I mean we) are pretty good at describing what happened on the field and what happened in the clubhouse, most of them (I mean us) are too lazy or afraid to find out and report about what's going on in the offices where the tycoons make their secret plans. Which is why nobody in Boston, or at least nobody in the mainstream media, got around to the truth back in 2000.

Fortunately, that's all just a bad memory now. The new owners, rather than running down Fenway and letting it become run down, have actually decided to promote Fenway for what it is: the best place to see a baseball game in the world (now that Tiger Stadium lies fallow). Management's been billing the building as "Friendly Fenway Park" for years, but this season it actually is friendly, the huge ticket prices notwithstanding.

For as long as anybody could remember, there was a virtual moat between the bleachers and the rest of the ballpark. Why? No good reason, really. I suppose the team figured that the bleacherites shouldn't be allowed to mingle with the better-off fans. But nowadays even regular people like you and me sit in the bleachers all the time, and it sure is nice to have the run of the ballpark. And speaking of mingling with the better-off fans, this year anybody can visit the ritzy Diamond Club after the seventh inning (though why anyone would want to spend the eighth and ninth innings indoors, I haven't the foggiest idea)." The concession stands have been spiffed up, too (though unfortunately the food choices don't seem to have improved).

And then there's the scoreboard. Wednesday night when Chris Magruder led off the top of the first for Cleveland, the board said of Magruder,

COMES INTO TONIGHT'S GAME WITH A .639 OPS

Huh? But wait, it gets better. During that first inning, between batters the scoreboard displayed an explanation of OPS. Yes, folks, a major-league baseball team is actually making an effort to educate the fans, which isn't something I expected to ever see.

It's only one game, but now I've got only one complaint about Fenway Park: they still haven't repainted the numbers on the concrete that indicate the sections and rows, which makes it difficult for first-timers to find their seats. I suspect that's coming, though. Because the new owners, whatever faults they might have, are not ashamed of their place of business.