My World Series Experience

Sorry for the longtime-nopost. Its just that baseball season, a cold/sinus infection, and pressures at work have sucked my attention away from this all-important blog.

Let me start by discussing the root of all my current problems: the Houston Astros.

Okay, I'll start by saying I'm proud of my home team for making the World Series this year. I would have prefered that they win a single game, but all said, I would rather them get swept in the series than not be there at all. I have to admit that my stress level during the St. Louis series was much, much higher than during the White Sox series. Its like last year we won our first post-season series, this year we went to our first World Series, next year we should win it all.

Sounds good doesn't it.

I'm getting sidetracked.

Anyway, the stress of the Astros/Cards series seriously weakened my immune system. Then I just flat-out opened the door for germs and whatnot fretting over getting World Series tickets.

You see since 1986, when I first started paying attention to sports, I have been a baseball fan. And not just an Astros fan. I mean I became a baseball fan. I love the game. I love the history, the statistics, the romance, the players. All of it. So when the World Series rolls into town I think to myself that I would regret not going to the very first World Series game held in Houston.

Lets go back a couple of weeks before the Astros win the National League Championship. I was looking at ticket prices for the World Series then. Ticket face value was around $150 -- but unless you got real, real lucky, you couldn't buy a ticket at that price. You could, however, buy tickets from 3rd party ticket brokers for about $500/ticket. Like any normal American, I scoffed at the absurd price for a ticket. I figured that the people offering the ticket were gouging the market, and as game time approached the ticket prices would go down.

Boy was I wrong. The day after the Astros won the Cards series, prices skyrocketed to about $1200/ticket (that's for a seat, mind you -- standing room only tickets were going for ~$800). I wanted to wait till the game got closer to see if I could get any better deals, but I was too distraught that I wouldn't be able to find any tickets, that I decided to pay the huge price and buy two tickets. One for me, the other for my wife.

So I get online and purchase two tickets in section 327. I get called from the ticket broker some 2 hours later saying the tickets I bought were not available. There is some kind of generic ticket pool that all these ticket brokers use and none of them seem to actually own the tickets until they sell them. I didn't know that then, otherwise I would have told the guy that I didn't want any tickets and then I would have gone to a local ticket broker. But instead I get offered two tickets from the guy in section 401 (I think). There is a be worry spot about all this -- they won't be able to mail me my tickets until the day of the game. So I have over two grand committed to two tickets that I won't see until about 4 hours before the event starts. Against my instincts, I buy the tickets. And then I spend the rest of the week and weekend (about 5 days) with my stomach in knots about the whole thing.

Getting paranoid, I check out my order online. The tickets reported online are for section 415. So now I'm worried that my order is crossed with someone else's and I may not have tickets sent to the right place. It takes forever for me to get back through to my ticket broker who tells me everything is gonna be alright. But do I believe him? Would you? I mean, its a lot of money and my only shot at seeing the first World Series game in Houston.

So on Tuesday, the day of the game, I finally get my tickets -- for section 416.

Everything worked out fine. I went to my game. Saw my Astros lose. And had a great time. I caught a cough that eventually became a sinus infection -- but thems the breaks.

Here is a snippet of an email I sent to my brother-in-law when he asked me about getting tickets to the Big 12 College Football game that is being held here in Houston:

He wrote (from Austin):

I'm planning on going to the game; do you have any insight on how to score good tickets? The game is in Reliant.

I responded:

Having just been abused by buying overpriced Astro's World Series tickets, I have some insights. These are your options from best to worst: Try to buy them from whoever sells them at face value. This is, of course, impossible -- but still the best option. If you are EBay proficient, buy them there. They are by far the cheapest way to get tickets. Go to a local ticket broker and buy tickets from them. Only buy tickets that they can give you right then. And make sure they are real tickets, not etickets or anything else. Purchase tickets from an online ticket broker that is located either in Austin or Houston. This way if something happens in the mail, you can manually pick them up. Make sure all tickets you buy can be mailed right away. Do not buy tickets that will arrive at your place a day or two before the event. I bought tickets to the Astro's world series game 3 from a ticket broker in California. They mailed me the tickets the day before the game. Though I got them, I was sweating bullets for about 5 days. The original tickets I bought online, were actually unavailable. I figure a lot of the online stuff is for show. When I got called by the ticket brokers I bought another set of tickets. When I checked on my order I found out that I did not get the tickets I wanted. When the tickets were actually shipped to me they were not the tickets I originally bought, nor the tickets I bought over the phone, nor the tickets that the online order said they were -- they were a yet different set of tickets. The seats were fine, however. Don't expect great customer service or reliability from 3rd party ticket brokers. But its really your only option. I sit in the southern endzone of Reliant for my Texan's season tickets & they are great seats. Since they don't allow you to move around much in the stadium, I don't know what the other angles are like. I can vouch for the second tier of the endzone however.