Scratch and sniff. Then gag. It seems every ticket to anything around here now comes attached to the stink of a boiler-room operation, the stench of a pump-and-dump.
From the moment the office of “Bottom Line Bud” Selig declared the Mets would host Tuesday’s All-Star Game, the team saw to it its All-Star Game met or surpassed all modern standards:
A chance to fleece, to marinade the event in sucker sauce, to tack on tack-ons to the tack-ons. Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, an increasingly expensive and worthless enterprise, now exists to exploit baseball, not to showcase it. With Selig at the wheel, no team needs to check to see if the steal sign is on: It’s always on.
Consider this: Mets season-ticket holders — ostensibly the best, most loyal/foolish customers the team is lucky enough still to have — months ago were informed they had the advanced privilege to buy extremely expensive All-Star tickets provided they also purchase tickets to unwanted, other night inventions, those designed to maximize the take — such as the Fanfest at the Javits Center, a celebrity softball game and the Home Run Derby.
Those who were not Mets ticket plan subscribers were informed their All-Star Game desires could be met — provided they purchased a lot of Mets tickets.
In the case of the five-day Fanfest, pre-existing Mets customers were told by the team’s sales reps they would have to buy tickets to at least one of the five sessions, tickets for $27 per session in order to enter and spend more money on things such as memorabilia auctions.
However, those “fortunate” Mets ticket subscribers, with all their accrued All-Star Game purchasing privileges, lately learned MLB was selling those same $27 tickets for $12, $10, $6 and in two-for-one come-ons — whatever the league can get.
All along this crooked trail, sales reps were heard to explain the Mets’ hands were tied — the game ticket pricing and terms are established by MLB.
So MLB told the Mets to exploit the All-Star Game to sell regular-season tickets? It didn’t have to. It was understood, no wink or nod needed.
In a post-Bernie Madoff season, when the Mets should be doing all they can to establish or re-establish long-gone good, the Mets continue to shake people down, ensuring they learn — and never forget — how to live without them, good teams and bad.
The Mets already owed their direct-buy customers an explanation and an apology for dumping unsold tickets to StubHub, which, in concert with the Mets, sold them at discounts beneath face value.
The Mets are working off the same greed-kills plan the Yankees have been hideously wedded to since new Yankee Stadium opened. Remember, in April of Season 1 of the new Stadium, Selig declared he personally had inspected the pricing and found tickets are “affordable.”
That’s right, the commissioner said he had no problem with seats — per game, per ticket — priced at $450, $600, $850, $1,250 and $2,500. Just as he has no problem switching Sunday afternoon Eastern Time Zone games to 8 p.m. for ESPN dough.
To think the Commissioner of Baseball once was charged to protect the best interests of The Game and its fans.
There’s only way out — past the sign that reads, “EXIT.” They’re all over PSL Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Citi Field and Jimmy Dolan’s Madison Despair Gulag. Get out, stay out. No urging needed from here. Our teams and the guardians of our games are doing a good job without anyone’s help.
Look at all those empty seats!
HR Derby will get full ESPN treatment
IF there was any doubt ESPN’s sensitivities would provide serious promotion, inspection, analysis, chronicling and regard to slam-dunk contests and home run derbies, on Wednesday ESPN held a conference call for reporters to discuss this year’s Home Run Derby with analysts John Kruk and Nomar Garciaparra.
The third member of ESPN’s Home Run Derby coverage team, Chris Berman, was unavailable, as he may have been tied up rehearsing self-promotional calls he rendered tired and transparent 20 years ago.
* Is there no one at YES willing to save Michael Kay — and YES’s viewers— from Michael Kay? When he’s not forcing belly laughs or reading any and every stat he can — “Vernon Wells, with two hits, tonight, now 8-for-16 in July” — Kay continues to make bad guesses, then speaks them as fabricated “facts.”
In the bottomof the fourth inning of Tuesday’s Royals-Yankees game, a graphic showed the AL Central standings with Kansas City in third place, six back, at 42-44.
“They are right there,” Kay needlessly added. “They got off to a slow start but they are just five back in the loss column to the Tigers.”
Boing!
Slow start? The Royals began 17-10! In fact, on May 5 they were a half-game out of first, which was when another big-time, big-town, bad-guess artist, Mike Francesa, expertly declared them to be a strong club that would be in it for the long haul.
Need I write more? The Royals proceeded to lose 22 of their next 28 games.
While we’re at it, on Wednesday, Francesa said Mets righty Zack Wheeler, according to his own superior knowledge and what he “has been told” (There are those voices again!), isn’t ready for the majors. Later that day, Wheeler shut out the Giants for 6 2/3 innings in a 7-2 win.
Helping class act Carrino battle FSHD
Not that you can tell from his strong-voice and alert, candid radio calls of Nets games, but Chris Carrino suffers from FSHD, a form of muscular dystrophy.
At first, Carrino preferred no one know what was hard to miss. Now, with the urging of his wife, the Third Annual Chris Carrino Foundation Dinner Dance to fight FSHD will be held Thursday, at Russo’s On The Bay in Howard Beach. There is a lot of neat stuff planned. For details contact Laura at 917-572-2757, or clcarrino@optonline.net.
* The Mets, Major League Baseball, MLB Network, ESPN and Budweiser will proudly present Pitbull to perform as part of the televised entertainment prior to Monday’s Home Run Derby. What does that have to do with baseball? Pop culture must be served!
But I dare any rep of any of the five above parties to publicly recite from the bulk of Pitbull’s lyrics, starting with, oh, a little number titled “Miami S–t,” or, perhaps “All 4 Sale.” Look ’em up, print ’em out, then take it from the top, Commissioner Selig. Go ahead.
Then go fine or suspend someone for tweeting “inappropriate language.”