Happy Solstice! And I’d like your opinions…
It’s definitely a better one than last year, when Eric Byrnes had just gotten non-tendered by the Baltimore Orioles and I was literally sick about it. As grim as the weather that day. This year, it’s colder than last and it is actually raining as opposed to threatening last year. But Byrnes knows he has a place to play next year, and although he’s going to arbitration with the D’Backs, he has some sort of nice raise coming to him after the fine 2006. So I am in a much better mood.
Here is some other really good news. Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester goes for his last chemotherapy today. So let’s hope that from now on, the things beginning with C that he has to focus on are Curves, Changeups and Contention for Championships.
The time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is my heaviest work period at KPFA. I am one of those people who helps keep the news department running while others take holidays and vacations, i.e. as a part-timer with no paid holidays or paid vacations, I pick up as many subbing hours as I can. So I haven’t had time to write as often as I did before. However, I intend to give my opinion on some of the off-season signings. Maybe Zito will have picked a team by the time I do that. I will be a little delayed in giving myself a Solstice present., But that present, results of which I will share with you, will be the time to fully analyze the fine 2006 Eric Byrnes turned in and to write up what I think he needs to do to make 2007 even better.
I also want to write an article about the cost of baseball tickets. I’m going to put my journalistic research skills behind this one, so it probably won’t get done until sometime in March, given everything else I have to do. Whether it ends up here or someplace else won’t be determined for a while yet, but it is something that I want to do and I’d love to have your help. If you have written about ticket prices in your area, please point it out, I might want to quote you. If you haven’t written a piece, but have opinions on the subject, you can leave a comment on this blog or send me an email at kellia[at]rise4news.net. If you do that latter, let me know if you are willing to be quoted by name, (just a first name and city is fine). I generally figure people who email me when they could leave a comment on the blog want to be incognito.
The basic contention of my article is that despite the increase in attendance, the experience of live baseball is being taken away from many fans because tickets are so expensive. Maybe more people can go because they have been able to become season’s ticket holders, but others, the walk-up types, like me, who can’t afford that are being more and more left out. Have you reduced your baseball attendance because of ticket expense? If you go as part of a family, has the family reduced its attendance, or split up games so that part of the family goes some times and the other part of the family goes the other times? Are you a young person whose allowance can’t keep up with rising ticket prices? Do you depend on a program sponsored by a player or by your local team, or a community organization in order to get tickets? Are you an adult who now has to put tickets on a credit card when you used to be able to pay cash? How has the success or lack thereof of your local team impacted ticket prices? Etc, Etc. Let me know what you think.
If you don’t want to give details about your experience, you can at least vote in my poll about money in baseball. Are high player contracts to blame for high ticket prices or would it be possible to pay players market rate and still bring ticket prices down? Do you attend games of other sports that have salary caps? Haven’t those prices gone up, too?
Speaking of money in baseball, the Giants and Barry Bonds are hammering out the details of a one-year, $16 million deal. I’ll give you the results of my Barry Bonds poll as soon as I can find them. They’re around here somewhere…
Kéllia Ramares
mlblogsbyrnesblog
Kellia:
If you’re willing to sit on the hard bleachers, I think that you can still enjoy a game complete with a hot dog and the beverage for about $20. That’s not too bad, I don’t guess.
Speaking as a Yankee fan, who used to get out to The Stadium bleachers 2-3 times a week on homestands during the 1970s for 35 cents a bleacher seat, I think the current rate at Yankee Stadium is $10 per bleacher seat.
At the rate these screwball owners are blowing money on mediocre players, I think that the $20 ballgame will soon go the way of the Dodo.
I love the blog! It’s always enjoyable!
Merry Christmas!
Rick
munsonshouldbeinthehall.mlblogs.com
what she said!
It’s not just baseball–I remember when I moved to SF, there weren’t any homeless, there were jobs and cheap rents. Now, it’s just cheap modern buildings, totally elitist. I got a kick out of how the Mayor et al got so bent out of shape over the 49ers using “San Francisco” as if they owned the name . .. that belongs to Francis of Assisi, and if he could find a lawyer where he is, he’d sue the City and demand his name back.
He was all about helping the poor, ya know. Watching them die on the streets, watching the City turn ugly, overbuilt and nasty . .. you didn’t have to be rich to live here or go to a game. maybe it’s all of America, maybe that’s why our nation is so out of joint.
At any rate, may all the druids bless this holiday.
your pal,
tigger
Oh, Rick, with the new price increases, some games will be $25 for a bleacher seat.
Rick,
If you are talking about San Francisco, I sat in the bleachers on Aug 21 and 22. Tix were 18 a piece and that did not count the “convenience” fee for ordering them online. I would have been better off to just go, and if the bleachers were sold out, as they were in late April, just pay a little more to sit in the third deck. It would have been cheaper than ordering online.
The hot dog I had the first day, the simplest one they had, was $3.75. I pass on drinks both days, even though I really wanted/needed the hot chocolate the second day. But $5 a cup was too rich for my blood, even for them making it at my seat. After all I still had transit fares from Oakland to consider.
And I can’t exactly say I enjoyed it. If ever a stadium needed a retractable roof, it’s the Ballpark by the Bay. I froze both days, even though, having lived in the Bay Area for many years now, I knew to dress in layers. In fact, on Aug 22, I left as the bottom of the 6th began. I had never left a ballgame early before. But before the FIRST inning, the wind was kicking up so much that I promised myself that if Byrnes was pulled in a double switch, I would leave. He was and I did. And to tell you the truth, even though it was the anniversary of his MLB debut, which is why I went, I was hoping he would get pulled. It was just too cold. More like Lambeau Field on December 22 than what San Francisco should be like on August 22nd.
SF is also one of those places that charges more for Fri, Sat and Sun games. So when I went on April 28, which was a Friday, I had to pay $25 for a third deck seat.
$25 for a bleacher seat. Either I willhave to hit the Lotto or Byrnesie himself will have to leave me a ticket before I can afford a game under those circumstances.
Kellia
The Mets raise their ticket prices every year regardless of success or failure. It isn’t the tickets that are the major problem with attending more games; it’s the ancillary costs such as parking, which is like going to a loan shark. I can’t imagine how a normal family with children functions if they want to go to a game or two. For me it’s usually myself, my fiancee and sometimes my mother. The proliferation of sites like StubHub.com where fans can sell their tickets are good vehicles to sabotage ticket brokers (who I think, many times, are in cahoots with team employees); and it’s a better deal than going through the team itself, as sad as that is to say.