When It's Time to Draw the Line

The Mets today announced an across-the-board 20 per cent increase in ticket prices for 2008.

The mind boggles as to why. I assume the Wilpons and Omar Minaya were not thinking fans would necessarily want to flock to Shea based on 12 losses in their last 17, nine of the losses against sub-.500 teams, and a 1-6 final homestand. And a little birdie tells me that with a gratuitous 10,000 seat drop in seating capacity for 2009 with the opening of Citi Field, the P.R. people already are fine-tuning the press release justifying a sharp increase for that season.

Or maybe they think that fans will pony up 20 per cent more in order to see Brian Schneider or Ryan Church 81 times a year. Or maybe they think that because the Yankees got the brunt of the Mitchell report, no one will notice.

But after 31 plus years of faith, fear and loathing in Flushing (to borrow from a Met-related blog I've happened upon), I've found that it's time to draw the line.

It's not so much that the Mets haven't been apologetic for the 2007 collapse. In fact, it's because they have...or rather, they made awkward noises of contrition. They came in the form of some sort of tautly written e-mail that was sent to...well, I don't know exactly whom; some season ticket holders got it, stating how "bitterly disappointed" they were in the failure to make the playoffs and that they expected better results. Wonderful. So...that was it?

Even back then I was saying that if they raised ticket prices for '08, I was finished. Not only will they allow prices to skyrocket in '09, they will do so being lathered up by the good 'ol folks at Subprime Citi for the naming rights, I pointed out. Patience, Patience, I was told. They will go out and make the big trade, or the big signing, and that will justify a price hike. So here they are - and the "big" deal was for Church and Schneider. As I said above, I don't even think management thinks that justifies a rate hike.

It's either about greed; or about the notion that in New York, people will pay to go to the ballpark no matter how much it costs. More likely, the latter feeds the former. For now, I'm done. I'm not spending a dime on Met tickets again. Not at Shea. Not at Citi Field. Fans have to know it's a business. Fans also ought to know that business becomes a market-immune monopoly if they don't speak truth to power...and stay at home.

The Brahmin