Thursday, February 08, 2007

i am trying to break your heart

With all due respect, this plan sucks eggs.

I have never been to Opening Day. I didn’t go last year because TBF wasn’t home and I already had all these baseball tickets in hand that I barely knew what to do with. But this year, we were going! We were bound and determined. I was going to use one of my floating holidays in order to take the day off (and the other one, of course, goes to Yom Kippur).  TBF believes that Opening Day should be a national holiday, but that’s besides the point. I was SO excited! Opening Day of another great baseball year for the Mets.

We had held off making any kind of serious plans for weekends in February, because we believed that during one of them, we would be bundled up in sixteen layers of clothing and sleeping bags, and we had the folding chairs and the hand and feet warmers and polar fleece and snacks in the cooler and I’d emailed my brother (who has every piece of camping equipment known to mankind) about the possibility of borrowing a tent and one of those space blanket thingies. Waiting in line? Hell, we’re pros. It was the price that had to be paid. Besides, we were veterans of waiting in line on the boardwalk in Asbury Park to see Bruce Springsteen - IN DECEMBER. February in Flushing would be nothing compared to that.

Instead, you surgically remove the cameraderie and the ability to earn it with this surgical, unemotional lottery. And I gotta say, not only is it slightly unfair, the reasons are b.s. I can understand - almost - the need to implement a method like this during the playoffs. There’s big money involved, scalpers get nasty, they hire people to wait in line for them, you didn’t want a security problem out at Shea. I can understand all of that.

But for OPENING DAY? You really think *that* many of the alleged influx of fair-weather fans allegedly ringing the phones off the hook in the ticket office are going to camp out in 30 degree weather in February to buy their tickets?

Um, not bloody likely.

You’ve done it this way for years and it’s a tradition, and frankly, it should still continue to be a tradition now that the team has achieved a degree of success. Let your press release be about the huge, unexpected camp out in the parking lot instead of “extensive demand has required we institute a lottery”. As my sister would say, BULL PUCKY.

What’s that, Mets Ticket Office? I can guarantee myself a ticket to opening day if I buy a seven-pack or full season plan?  Well, MTO (can I call you that?) I already have a Tuesday-Friday plan, and I kind of think that should allow me access to buy a ticket for Opening Day if I want to. And you know what - we’re so happy to give the Mets our money that we *would* buy a seven-pack, but the “Opener Pack,” the only option featuring Opening Day…

...FEATURES FOUR TUESDAY GAMES! Not one, not two, but FOUR! And, as you should know, MTO, Mets Grrl already bought tickets to all the Tuesday games. So this doesn’t help me. At all.

And - MTO - before you start talking to me about the wonders of the full-season plan, let’s get real: if I had the money, I would have bought in. But the jump from the cash involved to finance Tuesday-Friday to the small fortune involved to purchase a full season is not trivial. C’mon, MTO, deep down inside you know that, even though right now you’re all caught up in the romance of your new sweethearts, all the people who broke your door down waving dollar bills at you, demanding full season plans for 2007.

But, don’t worry, MTO, we’ll be at Opening Day no matter what. Because if that many people truly became full season ticket holders, Stub Hub and Craigslist will be hopping with tickets for sale in a few weeks.  So you’re right - it will truly be both “fair and convenient” for me to buy tickets to Opening Day after all.

See you soon!

With love,

MG