Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BAY WATCH: HOW IT SHOULD HAVE GONE DOWN.

As I walked to the subway against the bitter cold tonight, I came around the corner on 7th Avenue and there, on the Times Square news ticker, I see JASON BAY SIGNS TO THE METS FOR $65M. I should be thrilled. I should be happy. I should be trash-talking the Red Sox fans in my office. Instead, my reaction is “ehhhhh”.

I like Jason Bay. I have always liked Jason Bay. I was sad for Pirates fans and happy for Red Sox fans when he went to Boston. For heaven’s sake, Eddie Vedder once campaigned for him to be in the All Star Game. For once I do not feel like we are getting the bottom scrapings of the free agent barrel. However, the dragging of the feet, and the “Jason Bay would rather play in Beirut than go to the Mets” and the “hey, let’s have MIKE FRANCESA give you HOTT new Mets news!” was all a big pin in my fan balloon.

It could have been different, though. Let’s go visit the gypsy woman and look into her crystal ball for a moment….

Jeff Wilpon sat at his desk in his office at Citi Field, busily tapping away on the computer. There is a knock at the door. He ignores it, and continues to tap. The knock is louder, and he ignores it again. Finally, the knocking gets insistent.
Jeff: “Dammit!”
The door opens and a head appears. “Mr. Wilpon?”
Jeff: “Who are you?”
Barry the intern: “I’m Barry, the intern? You said you wanted to see me.”
Jeff: “Yes, but not now. I was just about to kill this game on Sporcle… come in, come in.”
Barry walks in the room, clutching a report in a clear binder.
Barry: “Is it about my report?”
“You wrote this?” Jeff holds up a copy.
“Yes.”

Monday, December 28, 2009

FUTILITY, THY NAME IS THE METS TICKETING OFFICE.

We renewed our Friday plan. I didn’t want to do it on principle, but in the end it came down to the fact that we have really good seats (the best we could probably get under the circumstances) and the schedule isn’t terrible, now that they took the 1:10pm middle-of-the-week games out of the Friday plan. 

We did not renew the weekday plan. The schedule is terrible. We will buy some extra games, Twins and Tigers for sure, and will look to the secondary market for Opening Day.

The fact that we renewed one plan is probably why we haven’t gotten a call from the Mets asking us why we aren’t renewing one of our plans. Here’s a comment from a friend from yesterday:

So I got a call from the Mets asking about my Sunday plan renewal. This morning. At 9:30 am.

I happened to be up. But I did comment that it was a bit early to be calling people on a Sunday morning.

I went on to tell the guy that I was unhappy about having to buy weekday games with a Sunday plan, with the seats, and with being refused club access/being treated like a second class citizen despite ponying up money in advance. I also said that if Dave Howard says he wants to hear outrage, I wanted to note my outrage on the record. The poor guy on the phone, who seemed like a nice enough kid, did say that they have indeed heard a lot of outrage.

He said the Mets are looking into how to improve things for their fans. I commented that they should treat their fans as well as other teams do.

I wasn’t eloquent. Then again, for 9:30 on a Sunday morning, I wasn’t bad either.

Yes, they are “looking into”  how to improve things, just like they’re “looking into” the Hall of Fame they planned on “all along,” just like they’re “looking into” branding the ballpark WITH THE NAME OF THE TEAM THAT PLAYS THERE… I’ll stop now.

Anyone else get a call? I know about the guy who got called a “bad fan” (which doesn’t surprise me, as I believe that is truly what the organization thinks of us). Would love to hear your comments if you got a call and if you did, what you told them.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

SANTA MET.

This was the scene out at Citi Field early this afternoon. Mr. Met was posing for holiday photos, which was a task we prioritized ahead of running to the grocery store. I told Santa Met that I wanted Matt Holliday and Jason Bay for Christmas. He got very excited and clasped his hands together in the prayer position.

(Yes. I am five years old.)

We were just happy we weren’t the only adults who were there without children.

The new cream-colored jerseys were out, but the lighting was abysmal, and I couldn’t get any photos that were representative. (And to be honest, we were trying to get out of there as quickly as possible before BLIZZARD OF DEATH 2009.) Also, they have emptied out about 2/3 of the store, which we’re guessing is because that’s where the Hall of Fame is going to go. You know, the one they planned on having all along. Other than that, the place looked about the same as usual.

(In case you’re wondering why our photo isn’t on here, we’re saving it for the holiday card!!)

Sorry, I forgot I had turned commenting off while I was on vacation. It’s back now.)

Friday, December 11, 2009

HAPPY CHANUKAH.

Greetings on the Festival of Lights to my readers of the Hebraic faith. I am out of town for a few days, so have disabled comments until my return. See you next week.

THIS LETTER TELLS THE WHOLE STORY.

Given the amount of people who have written in to little ol’ me, and the amount of those people who have said that they have written letters to the Mets or spoken to their ticket reps, it continues to astound me that the organization would claim “there’s been no outrage” or that anyone is dissatisfied or not renewing just because of poor offseason moves.

This comment I received on the other post sums it all up the best, I think, so I wanted to reprint it separately, for emphasis.

Posted by: sbj
Location: Forest Hills

I used to be one of those guys who would camp out at Shea for 24 hours to get seats.  There was no reason for me to get a plan as I could get virtually ay seat location I wanted as I was usually first at a window.  The same held true for playoffs.  Once they started to put the best games and the playoffs in a lottery I decided to go with a saturday plan.

I started to get really fed up with the incompetence of the Mets FO when they would lottery out the playoff and best regular season tickets to anyone.  As a partial plan holder they offered me upper and Mez reserves (no matter where my seats were).  But the lottery winners had access to the best seats.  The people who support the team in the regular season should be given first dibs while the ebay sellers from Nebraska who win the lottery should at best get whatever is left over.  That’s a no brainer and when I asked my exec about it I got some canned response.  This is what the Yankees do.  The partial season holders get access to everything in a lottery (it’s not guaranteed but when you sell 20,000 partial plans what can you do).

So last season I decided to go with a full season plan.  I liked the off season moves and I thought the team was going to compete - plus the new stadium made me feel I could avoid eating any games I couldn’t go to.  OK so I was wrong.  But with the way the orgaiozation has run the club I just decided I couldn’t support it anymore.  Not when I’m being asked to fork over cash for 40 year old catchers when I’m doing holiday shopping.  When the Wilpons come out of denial let me know.

I didn’t renew and I didn’t even get a phone call from the Mets.

This is just pathetic. Instead of continuing to sustain an income stream from someone for years to come, they lose not just the ticket plan profit, but this person’s continued attendance, money spent on concessions, money spent on merchandise. Forget emotion, it’s just horrific business strategy.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

THE REAL REASONS.

I was dismayed earlier today to read a tweet from Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post that the Mets admitted that ticket plan renewals were “slow” and that they attributed the slowness to people waiting to see if the Mets would make moves.

Once again, they are either oblivious, or doing damage control.  Based on the results of the entirely unscientific METSGRRL.COM 2009 METSFAN SURVEY, I can share with you the results of our study below. Out of 33 respondents, 26 said they were NOT renewing, and 7 said they were renewing their ticket plans.

I personally was surprised by the reasons given for not renewing. We hear about the economy as a reason and the lack of star power as a reason, but the reasons for not renewing are actually things the Mets could control - if they were bothered to do something about it. Let’s break it down.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

WINTER WONDERLAND.

Twitter has started to make its mark on the Winter Meetings. If you’re on Twitter, and follow beat writers, your head is spinning. I follow beat writers for a handful of teams so I am starting to feel like like an owl. In between all of this are bloggers trying to make their mark, and whose desperation is so far resulting in stupid rumors being written about and Tweeted instantaneously, without any attempt to run down veracity. The ability to follow along in real time is seductive, and it’s fun, if you care about the behind-the-scenes machinations. It’s also frustrating, and infuriating, and heartbreaking, as the image above illustrates.

The Yankees get Curtis Granderson, and the Mets, to paraphrase Charlie Brown on Halloween, so far have a series of rocks. Jerry gave a statement today to Baseball Digest that the catcher position had to be sured up, so that’s why they went after catchers. They namedrop Torrealba and Molina and expect this to impress us. I am waiting for this episode of the Emperor’s New Clothes to end so we can get started with the baseball already. At least when this is all done I can still go watch baseball.

We have not yet decided if we are renewing one of our ticket plans or not. I very much appreciate the dialogue here over the past week and I think it has been helpful to a lot of folks. I will compile the responses shortly, but roughly 85% of people who commented said they would not be renewing, for a whole host of reasons (most of which have nothing to do with offseason roster moves).

Good articles:

• It pains me to say this, but the Phillies are 1,000,000 better than the Mets in selling tickets and treating their fans right.[via @howardmegdal]
• Great photos from last weekend’s private tour for Season Ticket Holders ONLY [via @nymetropolitans]
• “Luis Castillo has been offered to every team but Miguel’s Taqueria softball team.” [via The Eddie Kranepool Society]

Friday, December 04, 2009

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO.

We finally sat down and had the discussion to consider taking the step of NOT renewing either ticket plan for 2010.

Reasons for NOT renewing the ticket plan:

1. No post-season rights. The Mets claim there will be a “presale” for partial plan holders but they can’t tell you how it will work because (and I quote) “We’ve never done one.” Given that the general presales route involves assigning a password so simple a Phillies fan could guess it, please forgive me if I have zero confidence in this providing me with a way into the post-season. And yes, I realize it is ludicrous to discuss the post-season given the last few years but it’s a reason people buy plans.

2. No discount. EVERY TEAM IN MLB INCLUDING THE YANKEES GIVES A DISCOUNT TO PLAN HOLDERS. Every single one. I’m not going to go into the other discounts offered by other teams to repeat customers because I understand that this is New York City. Why should I buy in bulk?

3. I can buy better seats than mine for most games. I understand how it works, you’re saving the lower rows for full season ticketholders and then when no one buys them you release them to the general public. But there shouldn’t have been so many, and you shouldn’t have been continually sending out Flushing Flashes and Club Mets and whatever else you did to offer tickets for 50% off throughout the season.