Season Ticket Invoice Blues

Michael Cox

It's with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I open my mailbox at this time of year, because I know that it will soon be here. It is that mixture of pleasure and pain that is the season ticket invoice.

Pleasure, because I know it means I'll be once again watching my favorite sport from a guaranteed seat location, and for half of this year, in a spanky new ballpark. Pain because it's sooo expensive, mainly due to the large number of games a typical MLB team plays. To salve the cash bruise, I take on partners each year to buy chunks of seats (and by the way, if you're interested, drop me a line).

I'm by no means a high roller as season ticket-holders go: I maintain a couple of chairs in the second level of the ballpark, in the second row around first base. The move to the new facility, and its new, ultra-priced deluxe double-secret-society "club" seats in the second level and mega-swank fawning-employee corporate-patron boxes above that, means I'm pushed to the upper deck (again, the front row by first base, so it could be worse).

So, I'd consider myself about as hoi polloi as it gets without sitting in the outfield. The location, and even the cost, isn't what bothers me. It doesn't even bother me that one by one, over the years the team has taken away perk after perk (no more discounts, no more using unused tickets for outfield seats at other games -- next year the only thing they could possibly do to make it worse is to force the season ticket-holders to pick up their tickets in person so that the team owners can give us our official season ticket-holder kick in the ass).

What bothers me is that my local team is making it harder than ever for me to sell my surplus of tickets because they're a-fixin' to suck.

This team happens to be the Mariners (which you probably had guessed before clicking the link to this article), but the same scenario is playing itself out in Kansas City and Minnesota and Miami and Tampa Bay and Cincinnati and many other cities: Prices increase, but quality of product goes down. Teams then complain that it's the "small market" that's causing revenues to decline. It's happened in Chicago and L.A. too, so it ain't the market.

Unfortunately, there's a new corollary to this. Teams are saying, "But hey! If we build a spanky new ballpark, more people will come and we'll raise more money, even if we field the same team! How diabolically delicious!" Unfortunately, these teams (i.e., Seattle) are not learning from the lessons of Cleveland, Baltimore and Texas: when they give you more to spend, you sure as hell had better spend it.

In Tampa, another problem is hitting home quickly: The ballpark is awful. In fact, the two 1998 expansion teams have the worst new parks from a beauty standpoint since the KingDome. At least in Phoenix' barn-like BOB there's an endless supply of retirees with cash and an owner who knows he'd better start fielding a winner ASAP to justify his prices.

In Seattle, however, the Mariners have been planning for the past year for this day, by making sure everyone knows its the ballpark that will sell the tickets. And it will. Unfortunately, the team plays in the Dome for the first half, and barring an unexpected move, the rotation and bullpen will be so bad that they're making those games a white elephant, ticket-wise.

In fact, they could be the first team to draw under league average for the first half, then sell out every game for the second. Also, don't expect those sellout Safeco Field crowds to sit on their hands if the team goes south -- imagine the standing-room throngs out for Jose Mesa's blood. Wait -- I guess Cleveland's already had that for real...

The point is, there's only one thing you can give the fans that counts, and that's a winning team, and cheating on quality will come back to haunt you, as the A's and Twins will attest. Sure, when the season starts I'll be sitting in my designated seats, but you can bet I'll let them have it, early and often, when they stumble.

I'll start the rain of boos descending on those who suck (especially GM Woody Woodward, whose unfortunate length of tenure is due solely to the Mark Langston/Randy Johnson trade, which he blundered into in the first place). I will talk to the fans around me, and if I can even goad one into calling a sports radio talk show and blasting the ownership for incompetence, it will be worth my effort.

And I call out to you, season ticket-holders in other cities. Don't stand for management arrogance. Send faxes. Send them often. Bend the season-ticket rep's ear on the phone. Storm the gates of the team office, asking loudly at the reception desk who's in charge of pissing off the fans, because you'd like to shake their hand for a job well done. And boo, boo your lungs out when play is not of major-league caliber (Philadelphians may need assistance with this). Believe it or not, it works better than anything else...that is, unless Lou Piniella is your manager.

Then management just thinks you're yelling, "Louuuuu."

 

about the author

Michael Cox is proud to have helped run Bobby Ayala out of Seattle. If you're a believer in supporting your team no matter whether they deserve to be on an MLB field or not, you could try offering valium at mc@strikethree.com.