In lieu of watching the Oscars...

I did not go to the Nationals single season ticket sale on Saturday at RFK, as I was not in too much of a hurry to purchase tix since I have a season ticket plan, but I want to get a couple of games that aren't in my package, namely the two other Reds games and a couple of other games that I won't mention because they are going to sell out when people realize what is going to happen around that time in the season. (No more hints!) Most of my tickets will look like the 2007 version of the ticket to the right. Cool, huh? But the four other games I have my eye on will not look like that unless I buy them from another season ticket holder.

I want real tickets from RFK for those games rather than a Ticketbastard ticket or a print-from-home ticket for various reasons, one being to avoid all of those stupid per ticket charges and service charges (I mean, why should I have to pay to use MY printer?) Another is that I am rather particular about my tickets. I mean, what if some monumental feat is accomplished during the game - a no hitter, a milestone home run, the first game of a no name rookie who turns out to be the next Lou Gehrig? You want a real ticket, like a season ticket or the tickets to the left, not some generic white ticket or a printed piece of paper, right?

Tomorrow I thought I'd hit the team store that's only three or four blocks from where I work. Turns out the team store doesn't sell tickets like other team stores in the country do. Nor does any other place in the city, and the RFK box office is only open 10am-5pm Monday through Friday. Given that I work from 8:30-5pm and that it is about a twenty minute Metro ride to RFK plus a ten minute walk to the Metro, my lunch hour isn't enough time. So I am left with the option of paying the ridiculous charges, which won't get me my real tickets anyway, or taking time off work just to pick up tix, which I can't really do on account of future missed work for day games. Or I can cross my fingers and hope the tix I want don't sell out before the season starts! If I had been on the ball, I would have stopped down at RFK, but I wanted to see the GWU vs. UM games at College Park.

My point is - why not open a couple of hours every Saturday in March to sell tix? A lot of people are still old fashioned - it's the nature of a baseball fan. Or maybe I just want an excuse to go down to the ballpark! (Mmm...baseball...)

This isn't a complaint, but an observation. I was just surprised to discover the team store doesn't sell tickets. Or if it does, there is no information on the website about it. Sneaky ploy to make us pay extraneous charges and fees for a couple of pieces of paper? Hmm... :)

That last photo is of all my tix from 2006. Yeah, I save every ticket stub. Baseball fans are weird sometimes!
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Don't forget!

Nats single game tix go on sale tomorrow! I'll be in line at RFK, as I am not a season ticket holder (since I work at a non-profit,) though I do go to enough games in a year to equal a mini-plan. I just want to be able to choose which games I can go to. Looking forward to the home opener, the Reds games, and the games verses the evil Peter Angelos!

It's looking more and more like Soriwhino isn't going to be wearing the curly W come Opening Day. Fine with me - can we trade him for Brad Wilkerson? Sigh...

Thinking about getting up tomorrow and getting to the ballpark at 7am brings me back to last year when Home Opener tix went on sale. I arrived at what Ball Wonk calls the RFK Canyon National Monument at 7:30am and was the 41st person in line. It was pretty warm that day, gray but jubilant, and the crowd donned Nats gear like it was gameday. We talked like we were old friends, and some guys behind me told stories of going to Senators games with a flicker of magic in their eyes, as if baseball alone was what is right with the world (and isn't it?) The electric air was easy to swallow, and life was good and joyful and exciting. That is, until front office guys came out and told us we better start calling on our cell phones because we might not get tix. They created a false panic among the crowd, showing us that invasive corporate side of baseball that keeps the game from being the most perfect thing on the planet. I got my tix, though, lower level third base line.

As far as I can tell, Heaven is an emerald diamond where the Yankees only exist to have a losing team.