Idiots Write About Sports

I wasn’t going to go to Spring Training this year. First off, I really didn’t have anyone to go with — the wife wasn’t terribly interested in making the trip, and my friends now have things like children and mortgages as handy excuses to disguise the fact that I am an unpleasant traveling companion — and while I’ve done the Cactus League circuit by myself on a couple of occasions, it’s not something I like making a habit of. I’m heading to Anaheim in a couple of weeks for the second-round of the World Baseball Classic, so I’ll get my games-that-don’t-count fix one way or another this spring. Add to that the mortgage I’m now on the hook for — and the water-damaged bathroom I own that’s crying out for a remodel — and it looked like 2006 was going to be the first time since 2002 that I didn’t make a trek to Arizona. Of course, back then, I was saving my shekels for a trip to Kauai; now it’s for a sink and vanity combination. I’m not sure that this is really progress.

Anyhow, the operative word in the first sentence of that last paragraph was wasn’t. A week-and-a-half or so back, my parents let it be known that they were headed down to the greater Phoenix area for a little rest and relaxation at their time share and that a very comfortable couch awaited me if I so desired to make the trip. A quick check of Southwest Airline’s fare specials later, and I had booked myself a discounted Spring Training trip with room and transportation generously provided by my folks. So I’ll be spending this Thursday and Friday in Arizona… and living under the same roof as my mom and dad. I figure it’ll be just like those summers home from college, only this time, I can be more open about my drinking.

I plan on spending the majority of my waking hours skulking around the A’s camp, what on account of me pegging my entire sense of self worth on their fortunes and all. On Friday, that means a game against the up-and-coming Milwaukee Brewers at Phoenix Municipal Stadium or, as it’s known in the supply-and-demand game, “plentiful tickets for everyone.” But Thursday’s game — the opener of the Cactus League season — is in Mesa against the Chicago Cubs, who boast a fanbase of approximately 49 million fans, all of whom will be spending time in Arizona over the next few weeks. Which inspired me to order tickets through the Cubs’ Web site.

I ordered a trio of $9 grandstand seats, since the $5 lawn seats and my mother’s balky hip are apparently mortal enemies. The total came to $27 plus another $10.50 for the so-called “convenience” fee (the convenience being, I guess, the right to buy seats for 39 percent above their face value). Then, it came time to pick how those tickets would be delivered to me. Since I ordered them a week before game time, getting the tickets mailed to California was right out. I could have had them FedEx’ed to me, but I found the proposed $22 surchage a little on the onerous side. That left will call. Fine and dandy — one less thing for me to remember to pack. Will call, it is, I told the Web site.

Fine, the Cubs’ Web site answered back, that will be $3.25 extra.

Let me repeat that: the Cubs are charging me $3.25 on top of the $10.50 convenience fee on top of the $27 for the tickets themselves to do nothing more than print out my tickets, stuff them in an envelope, and keep them in a drawer until I arrive in Mesa a few days from now to claim them. Presumably, at $3.25 a pop, it’s a velvet-lined drawer in which the tickets are protected from dust and humidity. But still, when it comes to picking up tickets at will call, I think I was expecting something closer to the “free of charge” range.

And I’m not alone. I’ve been surveying all my sports-going friends the past few days to ask them if they knew of any instance where some franchise had the temerity to charge them a fee for picking up their tickets at will call — none of them could think of any. So it appears this is a practice exercised nearly exclusively by the Chicago Cubs as part of some plan to reward their fanbase for undying loyalty and lifelong fanaticism by squeezing every last buck out of them before kickign them to the curb. That Hohokam Park is not a smoking, burnt-out cinder suggests that these fans are only to willing to pay up.

You gotta finance Dusty Baker’s severance package somehow, I suppose.

There are times when I freely admit that being a fan of a small market team sucks rocks. You live under the constant threat of having your franchise spirited away to Las Vegas or whatever other municipality can be conned into building a taxpayer-funded stadiu. The commissioner regularly dismisses any success you enjoy as an aberration. SportsCenter usually relegates any highlights of your team’s games to right after the Indoor Lacrosse League scores. And you have to endure the hoots of fair-weather fans from the Southland, proclaiming their lifelong allegiance to a team they’ve supported through thick and thicker ever since September 2002. It is a dismal existence, made bearable only by the memorable moments created by players who will inevitably desert you for free-agency riches.

And yet, when I can walk up to any ticket booth in Oakland the day of a game and known that I’m going to be able to buy a seat somewhere in the building — and that no one’s going to try and shake me down for a few extra bucks should I try and pick up tickets at will call — I like rooting for a small market team just fine. The indignities are many, but the outright screwings are more infrequent.

You haven't been paying attention. The Cubs were scalping their own tickets last year; why not add a gazillion dollars in bogus handling fees on top of that?

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