I wish I’d thought of this

Back in March, a man named Michael Mahan, who has more money than me, bought the entire right-field pavilion (bleachers) at Dodger Stadium for two of the three games against the Giants the last weekend of the season. With that big a group buy, the tickets cost only $3.50 each (face value $6.00). He sold some to a broker, donated some to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and has been selling the rest through his web site for $15.00 each.

Everyone who buys a ticket, though — and the big brothers and big sisters themselves — has to sign an 8-page contract that if they catch a Barry Bonds home run ball, they have to give it to him, and then he’ll sell the ball and later split the money with him.

The Dodgers found out about all this, and they’re a little annoyed, but there’s not much they can do; in California, selling tickets above face value is only illegal on stadium property. They also threatened to let people into the pavilion for free during the games if there is a significant number of empty seats, but Mahan says he’s distributed almost all of the tickets, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

This was all on the front page of today’s L.A. Times, but reading that article requires registration, whereas baseballrelated.com doesn’t. I think the reason this made the front page today is because Bonds has gotten near 700 home runs a little faster than Mahan predicted back in March.

I’m going to the Dodgers game tonight, but sitting in the “reserved” (third) level, behind home plate, so no Barry Bonds home run balls for me. Well, since they’re playing the Padres, a Bonds home run ball would be highly unlikely no matter where I’m sitting.

Original comments…

Jim: It wasn’t in the L.A. Times article, so I forgot to bring up Charlie Sheen buying the entire left-field bleachers for a game at Anaheim in 1996. (“Anybody can catch a foul ball,” he supposedly said. “I want to catch a fair ball.”) The Angels apparently didn’t even make him fill up the section, because by all accounts, it was just Sheen and a couple of friends sitting out there. No one was in danger of hitting any milestone home runs in that game, though, and Sheen went home empty-handed.

Levi: You know, I was just retelling that story to Luke on Monday, but I had Sheen at Comiskey Park. My mistake, I assume, since Jim is known to be mistake-free.

Dan: Jim knows(tm).

Dodging the trolleys

Two recent pieces of news from the Los Angeles Dodgers: their organist Nancy Bea Hefley is playing a lot less than she used to, and they’re considering adding a mascot (no link available, but there was a story in today’s L.A. Times that, if today were April 1 and not June 1, I would have thought was fake).

I’m wondering if new Dodgers owner Frank McCourt doesn’t have some kind of “Producers”-style scam going on that depends on low attendance at Dodger Stadium. Raising ticket prices would have been too obvious, so he raised parking prices and concession stand prices, but that didn’t work too well, because people still keep showing up to the games. There were no spectacular free agent signings in the off-season, just a troublemaker acquired at the last minute. Yet the Dodgers are doing pretty well, so people still keep showing up to the games. Perhaps when the no-organ-plus-annoying-mascot plan doesn’t work, McCourt will make every night Free Beach Ball Night, in which every fan will get a free pre-inflated beach ball and will be encouraged to bat it around in the stands throughout the game. Oh, wait a second…

By the way, the Major League Baseball organist situation isn’t quite as dire as the Seattle Times column makes it out to be. Their list of organists is incomplete. For example, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have a live organist, believe it or not, to name one team they didn’t mention. His booth is next to, but not inside, the press box, and I was just a few sections over from it at the game last month. I only realized afterwards that I should have gone over there to see if he took requests.

Original comments…

Levi: Hey, don’t knock Milton Bradley.

As he said last year when sent down by Cleveland, “There seems to be one set of rules for Milton Bradley, and another set for everybody else.”

thatbob: Oh, see, I have a deep and profound love for annoying mascots that I’m surprised you don’t share, Jim. But at least if they get a Trolley Dodger, they’ll have to get a trolley, no? Wouldn’t that make you happy! LA hasn’t had one of those since, what, the 1940s?

I hope it’s a big pink and green trolley made of balloons and glitter that runs back and forth across the backfield. Isn’t that the kind you like?

Jason: Bernie Brewer was never annoying.

Levi: If the Dodgers get a mascot, who’s next? A big, stinky Red Sock? A plastered Trixie named Cubbina?

We can only hope.

Jim: The Red Sox have a mascot: Wally the Green Monster.