Red Sox fans not buying season tickets

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BOSTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Fans of the beleaguered Boston Red Sox aren't buying tickets, the team acknowledging season ticket sales in January were down 10 percent from a year ago.

Ron Bumgarner, senior vice president of ticketing, said the team is contacting season-ticket holders to offer seating upgrades before moving to a list of 7,500 names on a waiting list.

"They just didn't really put much effort to keep me as a season ticket-holder," said fan Matt Hynes via email to The Boston Globe. "You'd think they'd put a little more effort into it."

Interest in the team has waned, tickets for individual games are going for pennies on the secondary market and season-ticket holders have complained they cannot give away their tickets, the Globe said.

"They (the Red Sox) dropped the ball in the last couple of years, with the way the team was run. It just seemed like they stopped caring about the fans," Phil Ferraguto, a season-ticket holder since 1986, told the newspaper.

The Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 and made the playoffs in 2008 and '09 but haven't been in the post-season since. Last year, Boston was 69-93 and fifth in the American League East. It was the team's first sub-.500 season since 1997.