The 2009 Major League Baseball Thread

[Yoda]

I don\'t know the answer to that question, but if you\'re a paid athlete in a professional league, in my opinion, you should not be playing in another league while you\'re under contract...

[tyzack]

No offense to the WBC, but I feel the same way I do about this as I do about NHL and NBA players in the Olympics, it just shouldn\'t happen.  These players are under contract to their respective franchises and what happens if they get hurt, nothing.  These players are not being true to their contract.  If they get hurt during these outside games, they should be docked pay for the amount of games that they play.  Look at Forsberg a couple years ago.  He was injured while playing for the Flyers, but when the Olympics came, he was ready to skate for team Sweden and then after that, he\'s basically been useless and is now out of the NHL.  If I were owners of the teams, I would put a clause into all contracts that will not allow the players to take part in outside leagues...

remind me again why i should watch them then?

with the case of the NHL, who else would go? the jrs? they already have their international compitition.

college kids? most of the ones that are good enough to play for a country have already been drafted, therefore would fall under the same ownership as the pros...

...so you might as well just send the pros.

I believe in using amateurs.  Worked in 1980.

they were college kids.

[Yoda]

Aren\'t college kids amateurs?

[Spacey]

Every player gets the O.K. from their team to participate in WBC. The chances of getting injured in the WBC or Spring Training are equal.

If anything, playing in the WBC is going to get the players into season shape quicker.

[peaches626]

yoda, ya gotta live with less rules, guy- it\'ll make you happier!

[tyzack]

Aren\'t college kids amateurs?

Yes, but now-a-days all of the kids who would be good enough to play on a national team have already been drafted. Therefore they are already "property" of an NHL franchise, just like the professional players are, therefore, why not just have professionals play?

[Yoda]

Not sure if any RS or Mets fans are interested, but I just got an offer through Workers Advantage for Mets/Red Sox on 4/3 and 4/4 for $9 a ticket before fees.  It\'s a max of 3 tickets.  Let me know if anyone is interested in me getting them these tickets.  I have not interest in seeing either team, but figured I\'d put it out there.

[Yoda]

Not that I advocate helping the Mets, they should pounce on the recently released Gary Shefield who is only 1 hr away from 500.  Yes, he\'s prone to injury and has recently been a DH, but the mets could stick him in the outfield or use him off the bench.  This could take some of the bad taste out of them not getting manny.  I\'m sure that they could pick him up fairly cheep.  Any thoughts mets fans?

[peaches626]

Not sure if any RS or Mets fans are interested, but I just got an offer through Workers Advantage for Mets/Red Sox on 4/3 and 4/4 for $9 a ticket before fees.  It\'s a max of 3 tickets.  Let me know if anyone is interested in me getting them these tickets.  I have not interest in seeing either team, but figured I\'d put it out there.

damn, how\'d i miss this?

[Yoda]

Not sure if any RS or Mets fans are interested, but I just got an offer through Workers Advantage for Mets/Red Sox on 4/3 and 4/4 for $9 a ticket before fees.  It\'s a max of 3 tickets.  Let me know if anyone is interested in me getting them these tickets.  I have not interest in seeing either team, but figured I\'d put it out there.

damn, how\'d i miss this?

I don\'t know; I put this out there like 1/2 month ago.  I just checked and all seats for both games are gone...

[wildcoyote]

The ultimate April Fool\'s Joke is on me.  After 7 seasons as NY Yankees partial season ticket holder, I receive my tix in the mail today, only to find they are the wrong tickets. Instead of Sundays I have week night games. Everything about this new stadium has been a kick in the balls to existing plan holders.  On hold with customer service right now.  I\'m sure someone else has my tickets in their hands right now, so no way I\'m getting those...

Just had the Yankees tell to fuck myself.
As of today I officially resign as a Yankees fan. They are no longer interested in my business.  Looks like I\'ll be looking for new team to follow in 2009. Any suggestions?

[davepeck]

you should give WFAN a call, bri. they love hearing stories like yours..

[Yoda]

Just got my old-timer tickets the other day...

[wildcoyote]

For Peter Reilly, the real trauma came two years ago, when the Yankees raised the price of his season tickets beyond his means.

Reilly, a Branford lawyer, had been in his seats behind home plate since the days of Stump Merrill, back when the Yankees were giving them away for $9 a seat. Reilly had caught glimpses of Paul McCartney and Jack Nicholson. He taught his daughters to keep score while they sat on his lap. And he saw some amazing baseball.

“I was almost in tears when I was pleading with the guy to see if there was anything else he could do,” Reilly said. “The only thing they could do is put me up in left field. After all those years, I was at the back of the line.”

Yankee Stadium Virtual Tour

Reilly was one year ahead of most people. This season, as the Yankees move into their spiffy new stadium, many longtime fans are finding out that while the sight lines in the new park are superior, the cost of catching a glimpse is beyond their means.

“The misconception is that all the people in those seats were corporate people,” Reilly said. “There were regular people who were creative and patient and went in together for tickets.”

One of those patient people was West Haven’s Vin DiLauro. For the last 21 years, DiLauro has sat in Section 7, underneath the overhang behind home plate. Those seats initially cost $7, which was about all you could charge to watch Don Slaught catch Andy Hawkins.

When the Yankees play the Cubs in an exhibition game Friday to break in the new ballpark, DiLauro will be there — but he’ll need binoculars to see Jorge Posada. DiLauro and his crew are out in right field in Section 210.

“I’m excited about the ballpark, but I probably won’t be enjoying it as much as I once did,” DiLauro said. “We’ll be looking at the game from a radically different perspective.”

What is happening at Yankee Stadium is merely a hyperbolic version of the financial squeeze being put on sports fans all over the Northeast.

The notion of a night out at the ball game, once a rite of passage for many American families, is becoming unaffordable.

Consider:

- The Mets are also moving into a new stadium, with fewer seats, more luxury boxes and higher ticket prices.

- The Giants and Jets will open a new stadium in 2010 that will require fans to purchase seat licenses merely to gain the privilege of buying tickets.

- The Red Sox have had the highest ticket prices in the majors for years, and the Patriots were at the forefront of building a stadium too small for demand in an effort to maintain ticket prices.

The rise in ticket prices during the last two decades has outstripped inflation by a wide margin. For example, if DiLauro’s $7 seats had risen at the rate of inflation, they would cost a little more than $12. Equivalent seats in the new stadium are being sold for $350.

The trend has ********ed in the last two years even as the economy has sunk, leaving many to become more cautious with their money.

Economists say the reason ticket prices have increased so rapidly is that for a long time they were under-priced.

“Basic economics will tell you that if you have sold out every game for four years or have a waiting list of 20 years to buy season tickets, your prices are too low,” said Koleman Strumpf, a professor of economics at Kansas University who has done research in sports and markets. “Ideally, you would want the park to just barely sell out for every game.”

For years, teams had little opportunity to determine how high they could raise ticket prices without risking a public mutiny.

But when StubHub and other ticket sites began to sell unused tickets at a considerable markup — and fans began to pay it — teams quickly followed suit.

Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said last September the Sox used StubHub as a model for how much they could charge.

“There is no question we looked at it,” he said.

If the goal is to price tickets so that each game barely sells out, the Yankees may have inadvertently achieved it. The Yankees (and the Mets) set their ticket prices before the economy unraveled last fall.

As a result, the Yankees, who have taken out ads to encourage ticket buyers, will likely play before at least a few empty seats in their first season in their new ballpark.

That is, unless there are enough fans like Sal Barone, of East Haven, who plans to buy his way into CitiField through a ticket broker.

“I have to get in there at least once,” he said. “I go back to Elliott Maddox. I’m going to see CitiField this year somehow.”

For longtime fans who sat loyally through the lean years only to be pushed farther from home plate and pinched for more money, the new stadiums cause ambivalence.

“It used to be if you stuck with the team they rewarded you,” Reilly said. “But we all got squeezed out of the best seats.”

Reilly has reconstituted his old group and purchased seats high up behind home plate, seats similar to the first ones he purchased back in 1981.

He is, like the Yankees, starting over.

“I think the new stadium will be great,” Reilly said. “It will be a great stadium, but it won’t be my stadium

And I thought I got boned. After talking to other ticket holders yesterday I realized what happened to me is a ripple effect from the premium seats.  These went from $50 per seat, per game to $350. This pushed alot of people with serious longevity out into my area, pushed me straight out of my plan into a lesser one, and as I heard from some- pushed people with low seniority dates out of plans entirely.

[tyzack]

Tickets to major league events are becoming luxury items, it seams.

However, the Paw Sox still sell $6 GA seats, with $4 beers.

I\'ll get my baseball fix for the same price as a warm beer at fenway.