6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Oh, yes. The trouble was that, despite our problems last year with attending all 20 games (that's an amazingly large number if you think about it, especially if you hope to get in anything at Chavez Ravine), the Angels subtly gave us a big nudge. Last year, we had tickets way up in the thin air at the very top of the 526/527 sections, i.e., first base side roughly parallel with first and third, or maybe a little inside. But at that elevation, it's difficult to tell exactly what's happening; the plus, of course, is that given how cheap the tickets were, we ended up buying four seats, because having that much space is a great boon if you want a place to put things, or to bring some friends occaisionally.

Were you able to get those same seats back?

Well, of course not. The unbelievable message we got in December was that even those seats were unavailable for mini-plan buyers. We could upgrade to the 41-game MVP mini-plan (thank you, Google cache), but ... forty-one games? Well, it was either that or seats even further away and in even worse parts of the park, i.e., close to the foul poles. Blecch.

Hence, our conversion to season ticket holders. Helen just got our payment in under the wire (in fact, a day or so after the deadline), and so we attended Select A Seat Day today, as a member of the very last group to get to do so.

Just how slim were the pickings?

Bad, of course, but it could have been far, far worse. One of the reasons there were as many seats available as there were is because Arte has chased off the seat brokers, terminating season ticket deals with anyone holding large numbers of seats (60 was a number we heard repeated a lot). As a result, even for us there were a goodly number of choices, though none of them really tantalizing. Calculating the totals out to 82 per season (including the Freeway Series exhibition game), there were:

• A few Club Loge seats, i.e., Club level seats near the foul poles on the third base side at $31/seat*game, or $2,542/seat*season.
• A tiny number of Field Box seats in the corner outfield positions, many of which were not contiguous ($24.50/seat*game, $2,009/seat*season).
• A goodly number of View MVP seats up where we were before in 526 and 527, at $9/seat*game or $738/seat*season.
• And scattered single seats in a number of sections.

So, is there any hope of moving down?

Well, of course. The Angels could have a losing season. This would represent an Opportunity, of course, but at the expense of much cursing at the television, so this is something we really don't want. But even if that doesn't happen, the Angels representative we spoke with, Mike Abraham, informed us that the team is changing its policy towards existing season ticket holders in the future. It used to be that season ticket holders who got four tickets and wanted to re-up could do so and could get more season tickets at the same time. So, one group might start with four, and then buy four more, and then four more, until they controlled considerable real estate. In the future, the Angels will require season ticket holders changing their seats to surrender their old ones first, opening up more seats. This strikes me as a much fairer deal if you're trying to get in, but maybe not such a good deal if you're already established.

How about those Club MVP seats?

Aw, fuggedaboudit. At $51/seat*game or $4,182/seat*season, they're pretty damned steep, plus most of the guys in that section have been season ticket holders for 20 or 30 years. Rejecting the idea of a TOS "Star Trek" alternate universe in which one kills the season ticket holders ahead of you in order to advance, the prospects are pretty dim. But getting into the 426/427 sections isn't out of the question, and maybe if we catch a break or three we can get even closer.

In the meantime, I'm open to anyone who wants to help buy some of my tickets. Drop an e-mail to the address on the sidebar if interested.

// posted by Rob @ 7:25 PM link  //  0 comments