BOSTON—The game, of course, was sold out. The fanatics of Red Sox Nation have filled every seat at home games at Fenway Park since May 2003. But when it is opening day (or night, as was the case on Sunday), when all teams start out equal, and the air is unseasonably warm, and the opposing team is Boston's fiercest rival, and that rival happened to have won the World Series last year, there is barely room to stand.

Some Red Sox fans are so devoted, they are willing to shell out $500 to watch the games from a bar outside the park. The view from the bar is of the back of Fenway's grandstands, with no glimpse of the field.

Trading on the popularity of the team, and the intensity of its fans, Jerry Remy, a local broadcasting legend, has taken on a new gimmick in restaurateuring. Jerry Remy's Sports Bar & Grill, a block from Fenway, is selling a “;season pass”; for $500, guaranteeing buyers their own table in the restaurant for all 81 home games and providing one free beer and $25 worth of food per game. Another $500 buys a season pass for all 81 away games, but as the restaurant claims, “;there is never an away game.”;

As of Sunday night, Remy's had sold out its 150 passes for home games and had about 60 available for away games. But, perhaps not surprisingly for Red Sox fans, many of the season pass holders also had tickets to the game.

Kimberly Scirpo, 38, who lives in Merrimack, N.H., and deals in rare coins, was the first person to sign up for the home season pass. She and her friend Shiela Gardner, 42, came to the restaurant around 3:30 to eat before the 8:05 game against the Yankees. She said she bought a season pass because she wants to support Remy, a Boston institution, and likes the idea of a guaranteed table, “;to have a place that you can always call home.”;

But Scirpo also spent $700 for two tickets that will put them on top of the Green Monster, Fenway's iconic left-field wall—not great seats, but good for bragging rights.

The $5 million restaurant, with its upscale brick-and-wood interior and exposed concrete columns, is meant to evoke Fenway, the oldest baseball park still in use and one that, with a seating capacity of only about 37,000, cannot accommodate the team's swelling congregation.

Remy and his partners are hoping Fenway die-hards will help build a yearlong fan base of their own, and they intend to sell season passes for Boston's other professional teams, the Celtics, the Patriots and the Bruins.

The most striking feature inside the restaurant is the view—on television. A pair of outsize high-definition televisions, measuring 11 feet long and costing $225,000 each, hang above the bar. Even the men's room is outfitted with three 32-inch screens. (The owners said there were no televisions in the ladies' room because a woman perched inside a stall would not be able to see them.)

John Mascia, a managing partner overseeing the restaurant, said season pass holders would be treated royally because “;they are our ambassadors to the brand.”;

The brand is Remy, 57, a former second baseman for the Red Sox who is beginning his 23rd year as the team's color announcer on the New England Sports Network. He and his partners are counting on his continued popularity in the New England market—and on the demand for Fenway seats to continue to outstrip the supply—to allow them to expand the franchise.

“;There's no question that we're looking at more places, probably not on the scale of this, but the same idea,”; Remy said before the game.

The season-pass concept is partly intended to attract fans who have been priced out of the live game experience, in which tickets, parking, food and merchandise can set a family back hundreds of dollars per game.

Sunday night, Remy's official opening night, was the first test of the restaurant's marketing strategy. It was full starting in midafternoon, and it was full at dinner. Don Bailey, the restaurant's general manager, said he was not surprised that some pass holders left for the game, nor was he disappointed. He views each pass holder, who can bring any number of friends, as an “;ambassador.”; One was bringing 17 friends—17 potential new customers, in Bailey's eyes—and staying for dinner.

When pass holders left for the game, they simply created space for the people without passes who were lining up to get in. Bailey said the passes would help protect Remy's from the pattern at some of the other sports bars in the neighborhood, which generally go from 100 percent of capacity before the game to about 20 percent during the game, before rising afterward.

Among those who said they loved the idea of a season pass were four Yankees fans, who had driven almost six hours from Syracuse to watch their team go up against its most bitter rival.

“;Fantastic,”; said Russ Prince, 34, a law school student, upon hearing about the passes. He predicted that he and his friends would spend $600 on food and drink before the night was over and that a season pass would have cushioned the blow. Quickly doing the math, he also predicted that by next year, the season passes would cost three times what they do now.