Do you have your tickets for 2012 yet? That’s when the Red Sox will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park. It’ll be a grand celebration, to say the least. It’ll also be a very different ballpark than the one you see this season.

As you know, the Red Sox on Wednesday announced a “long-term commitment” to Fenway Park. There will be no new ballpark by the waterfront. The grand old lady – opened in 1912 — will be the home of the Sox for decades to come.

When Tom Werner and Maine’s own Les Otten first looked at buying this team some five years ago, they were the only group of prospective owners considering Fenway as a viable long-term home for the team. Virtually every other group of would-be buyers wanted to build a new, state-of-the-art facility.

Now, we know that won’t happen. If that announcement would’ve been made in the Spring of 2001, when the new owners took over, there would’ve been a huge negative reaction. Instead, the reaction has been largely positive.

The change is largely because of the improvements we’ve already seen in the past three years. The closing of Yawkey Way, the addition of seating sections on the Green Monster and right-field roof, and the new “Big Concourse” below the right-field bleachers have all made Fenway a more enjoyable place to spend a night.

“Improvements have been made with such fan satisfaction that it has encouraged us to keep going,” said Werner. “If we had felt there was still some question whether we should remain or leave, then we might’ve gone a different way.”

Instead, the improvements continue. There will be a new concourse above and behind the first-base grandstand seats this summer. Below that will be 12,000 additional square feet in the Red Sox clubhouse. A new field with better draining and a better infield will await the world champs. And a new look to the outside – bringing the street-level facade on Landsdowne St., Brookline Ave., and Yawkey Way back to its original look – will make the stadium look shiny and new.

This ownership group – now led by Werner, John Henry, and Larry Lucchino – has vowed to continue improvements in upcoming years. The major facelift after this season will be the removal of the ugly “aquarium” glass in front of the .406 Club behind home plate. Instead, that area will feature two open-air decks. Those seats will be expensive. Very expensive. The owners are now trying to figure out where they can add less-expense seats.

“We need to find some new places for seats that can be at a more reasonable price,” said Werner. “Obviously those seats behind home plate in the new .406 Club will be expensive. I’m concerned about the average Joe who wants to come to the ballpark. I don’t want baseball to become a sport that only rich people can go to.”

To be a perennial contender, you have to have rich men wearing your uniform. The more you spend, the more likely you are to win. By not spending some $500 million or more on a new stadium, and by creating new revenue streams (by next season, Fenway Park will have grown to nearly 39,000 seats), the Sox will be able to consistently vie for top free-agents and add key players mid-season.

Is that worth a few sections in right field that face Brighton? Sox ownership thinks so. If you had your heart set on Camden Yards-on-the-Charles, take solace: the Red Sox should have a perennial contender at the field your father and grandfather watched them play. The same field your children and grandchildren will now call the home of the Red Sox.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is a studio host for Red Sox telecasts on NESN.