Fishermen's Wives raffling Sox tickets

Jul. 15—At the All-Star break, the Red Sox surprisingly are in first place in the American League East. Unsurprisingly, that means tickets at America's oldest major league ballyard have become a coveted item.

Here's a way you may be able to secure four premium seats to an August Sox game at Fenway Park, courtesy of singer-composer Billy Joel, the Red Sox Foundation and the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association.

Just one question: Do you feel lucky?

The GFWA is set to hold an online raffle Aug. 2 and the winner will receive four tickets — not just any tickets, but EMC/Dell Technologies Club premium seats and all the amenities — to one Sox game of choice among the six being played against the Tampa Rays (Aug. 10-12) and the Baltimore Orioles (Aug. 13-15).

The face value of the four-ticket set is about $2,000.

The best place to purchase raffle tickets, and gather other information, is online at https://redsoxtix.eventgroovefundraising.com/July-2021-raffle/Campaign/Details.

The raffle tickets are being sold in packages of 10 ($20), 30 ($40) and 100 ($100). The deadline for purchasing them is Aug. 1.

And more good news: If the GFWA sells enough raffle tickets, there could be more than one winner.

The proceeds of the raffle will benefit the GFWA and Long Island Commercial Fishing Association through the Fishing Partnership Support Services' Resiliency Fund.

The EMC/Dell Technologies Club is on the upper deck, just to the first-base side of home plate and affords foul line to foul line views of the historic ballpark. It is also one of the prime spots for snagging a foul ball.

The amenities include free parking across Brookline Avenue from Fenway Park, a private restaurant with full bar, in-seat wait service and private bathrooms.

This is one in a series of raffles the GFWA has held to distribute the Sox tickets now that fans have been allowed to return to Fenway Park and all other major league ballparks in the 2021 season.

"We've already done some other raffles, but not for money, for sets of tickets to people and families in our database," said GFWA President Angela Sanfilippo. "They just had to go online to register and they were entered."

Sanfilippo said the organization plans to raffle off more tickets for some September home games and may approach some private businesses, as well, as a fundraising mechanism.

In November 2019, Joel, a Long Island native and frequent summer visitor to Gloucester, as well as a longtime supporter of the fishing industry, donated the four seats to Red Sox home games for the 2020 season to the GFWA and the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Major League Baseball to chop the 2020 regular season schedule to 60 games from the usual 162 games, all of which were played in empty ballparks.

But Joel and the Red Sox Foundation rolled the gift over to the 2021 season.

Contact Sean Horgan at 978-675-2714, or shorgan@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanGDT.