The first time I did the advance ticket purchase thing was in 1987, thinking the Mets were a lock to repeat. I was 14 years old and literally counted out a water cooler full of apparently not-so-lucky pennies to buy a pair of tickets for a game a month. This, my friends, was a colossal pain in the nether regions. And what did I get for my effort? A season where Dwight Gooden started the first two months of the season in rehab, Bobby Ojeda, Rick Aguilera, Sid Fernandez and Ron Darling spent time on the DL and the Mets lost the division to the Cardinals. Coincidence or was this penny jar advanced purchase a jinx of some sort? Definitely something to consider.
Fast forward now some 13 years to the 2000’s when the Mets were coming off two consecutive post-season runs, including a World Series appearance. Tickets for the 2001 season were hard to come by for key games and I had a tradition of going to Opening Day every year. They only way to score Opening Day and Subway Series tickets was to either buy a ticket package or buy from a broker. So for a few years I did the ticket package thing because a package actually cost less for 6 games than a scalper charged for one. Sounds like a deal on paper but fast forward to June when your team is floundering and you are stuck with games until October and see how pleasant it is to drag yourself to the park because you can’t even give the seats away. Needless to say, my ticket package days ended some time during the Art Howe years.
This year, the edict on buying advanced tickets was lifted because I fully expected the Mets to have a good, competitive season and thought that reasonably priced seats would be hard to come by for weekend games in the new stadium. Plus, a good friend bought a season ticket plan and I had my choice of pretty much whatever games I wanted – except for Opening Day and the Subway Series. I generally hate the Subway Series so this didn’t matter to me, but not having Opening Day tickets was kind of a bummer because this was the first time I missed it in 10 years. On the flip side, though, the home opener was a night game in April that they ended up losing so I was definitely way more comfy on my couch cursing at the TV than in the elements drowning my sorrows in 8 dollar beers.
For a little more than $500 I bought a 6 pairs of tickets in Citi Field’s promenade reserve box down the left field line. At this point, I have one game left and I can honestly say, I might as well have flushed the money straight down the toilet. My first game on April 26th was a torturously long, 8-1 Oliver Perez loss in which Daniel Murphy ducked for cover from a fly ball in left. Can you say foreshadowing ladies and gentlemen? They did manage to win my May and July games, but June was loss to Tampa Bay and this past Saturday’s game against the Phillies was perhaps the most heinous loss of them all. Not only did the 2009 team disgrace the pre-game celebration of the 1969 World Series champs by handing their division rivals a win, but they also wasted a rare good outing from Tim Redding in the process. Add to that the fact that Phillies fans pretty much out numbered Mets fans and I can honestly say, the one semi-enjoyable thing about the evening was the delicious Shake Shack burger I stood on line 45 minutes to get. I left shortly after the burger…In hindsight, I should have left 45 minutes earlier, saved the $15 on ballpark food and went to a real restaurant where I wouldn’t have choked on my ground chuck.
Thankfully, the misery for my in-person games ends on September 6th – unless I can somehow unload this pair of tickets before then. My fingers are crossed that some Cubs fan may want to take them off my hands. But if not, I’ll be prowling the promenade reserve on Labor Day Weekend hoping 2010 brings better things. Things that I can comfortably observe from my sofa until the Mets prove themselves worthy of my presence at Citi Field.
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