Cardinals tickets are a hot commodity
Posted: Friday September 04, 1998 01:36 AM
| |
Fans in baseball-mad St. Louis are lining the streets, tying up phone lines and surfing the Internet to find tickets to the games AP |
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Ryan Record would give his savings to be in the stands
when St. Louis
Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire
hits his 62nd home run.
"I'd give $400 or $500," Record, 24, said while standing in the ticket
line at Busch Stadium Thursday, desperately hoping to get a ticket for a
weekend game. "If he was sitting on 61, I'd pay a lot. I'm that much of a
fan."
McGwire hit two home runs Wednesday night against the Florida Marlins,
giving him 59, only three short of breaking Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61.
He's hit four homers in the past two games.
So anticipation is high that McGwire will break the record during the
Cardinals' five-game homestand, with three games starting Friday against
the Cincinnati Reds
and games Monday and Tuesday against Sammy Sosa and
the Chicago Cubs.
Fans in baseball-mad St. Louis are lining the streets, tying up phone
lines and surfing the Internet to find tickets to the games.
At the stadium ticket window, they asked repeatedly, "Do you have any
tickets left for Saturday?" "Anything left in left field?" "What about
Friday, anything left for Friday?" All the ticket sellers could do was
answer no.
The Cardinals are virtually sold out for their final 14 home dates, which
includes a doubleheader September 15 against Pittsburgh, and have projected
a season attendance of 3.2 million. Busch Stadium has a capacity of 49,900.
"I tried calling all day yesterday and all morning long before I gave up
and just drove down here," said Richard Palmer, sighing as he realized that
between the Cardinals' home game schedule and his work schedule, the only
game he could attend would be Sept. 24 against the Montreal Expos.
By then, Palmer said, McGwire probably will have broken the record.
But he didn't fret long. He bought seven tickets.
"At least I got left field," Palmer said. "You can't beat that."
Meanwhile, phone lines to ticket brokers were ringing constantly
Thursday. Many calls were picked up by answering machines that announced
that Cardinals tickets had been sold out.
And an Internet check showed more people looking to buy tickets than
people offering to sell them.
"They're going quick," said Shane Milsap, a sales representative with
Best Tickets, based in Austin, Texas. "With McGwire now hitting the home
runs, it's just going through the roof."
Even with a starting price of $75 for bleacher seats, which sell for $6
at the stadium, Best Tickets was selling tickets to people all over the
country.
"It really picked up today," Best Tickets office manager Joe Walsh said.
"Once he breaks the record, he's just going to keep adding to it and the
interest is going to stay."
Price checks at other brokers, who refused to give their names although
their phone numbers were listed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch classifieds,
showed tickets going for between $100 and $400 apiece.
"There's plenty of people who are selling tickets," Stephen Gray, with
Sportix USA, said. "It's just that the average person can't afford to pay
them."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
| 
