As everyone knows by now, the Mets, beginning August 25, are going to start selling 16,000 pairs of seats from Shea to the general public at the cost of $869 a pair. This number is designed to remind Mets fans of the two world championships the Mets won, in 1986 and 1969. This pricing will be a handy mnemonic device for fans who have difficulty remembering in which seasons the Mets won the World Series. If we win this year, perhaps they’ll add .08 cents to the total. That would be extremely helpful.
Am I going to buy a pair of seats? Are you? No, I’m not. Here are my reasons. They are not the original seats. The original seats were the wooden ones that got replaced in 1980. I have never accepted the plastic seats as real, just as I have never accepted the fact that when I sit in the Loge, the seats are blue and not orange. The upper deck is green, the mezzanine is blue, and the field boxes are yellow. I know this as I know my own name. I have to stop and think before I can tell you what the colors of these seats have actually been for the past 28 years.
Another reason I’m not buying them is that $869 is a lot of money. For that amount of money, you could bring your family to a game, park your car, and have a couple of hot dogs and beers. Also, with 16,000 sold at $869, I wouldn’t bet on any appreciation anytime soon. This is a collectible sale for the kind of person who stocked up on Billy Beer.
Another reason I’m not buying is that my wife would kill me. That’s a legitimate concern. Stadium seats aren’t really cut out to be garden ornaments. They’re more like garage ornaments.
But the main reason I am not buying seats is that I don’t do relics. It may be cussed of me, but I think of memories as these things that are behind my eyes: dim, watery, imprecise, and absolutely authentic. They are in and of my soul. They do not have substance, location, or weight. They certainly don’t have a price. I can put them in a book and the book can be bought, I guess, but if you buy the book, you don’t have my memories. You have your own and that is all you will ever have. You cannot own a part of the Mets except by living through them.
When Shea comes down, I want my memories and my tears. I don’t want two orphaned and homeless seats in my garage.
Dana, I totally agree and i’m a little offended at the price. I’m offended at the prospect of the fact that I may be priced out of going to Mets games, even though I’m perfectly comfortable financially. I have had saturday season tickets for almost a decade. I split two seats with a friend and it comes to about $500 for our seats in the Mezzanine for the regular season games. In addition to the ticket price, each game costs me about $20-$50 depending on whether I find parking on the street in Manhattan and how much of my own food I bring (something they probably wont allow at Citifield). So altogether, each game costs me between $50-$100. Not counting merchandise I buy, or extra games I go to, I spend about $1000 – $1200 per year going to games (this does not count post-season games either, which are very expensive but well worth it).
I think that’s a lot of money, but I also think it’s worth it. I love the whole experience, and for less than a vacation, I get fun for 6 months.
Unfortunately, the Mets have not told partial season ticket holders yet whether we will even be offered plans next year. I’m thinking of contributing with a friend to someone’s full season plan, buying a couple of seats in a box that’s in a great location right behind first base, but the tickets, which are currently around $80 each will be about $135 in Citifield. At that price, I can’t do more than four or five, especiallly since they may be weeknights. At the new prices, I feel like I’ll be lucky to get to 10 games next season, instead of the 20 or so I have been doing for years.
I just never thought the cost of a Mets game would exceed the cost of a Broadway show. I can fly to Florida for what it’s going to cost me to drive, park and eat at the game. I can probably buy a television for the amount a game is going to cost me. So I think I’ll take my $869 and put it aside for an extra couple of games, or maybe a TV.
Bravo!
As one who has planted himself in those wooden seats I too want no part of these cheap imitation the Skill Sets and Billionire Bloomberg are trying to make a profit on. I just wish I knew where those wooden beauties wound up? I guess I need to hit the civil servants undergound and find an opertive in the Parks Dept to locate their whereabouts. If I do find them I’ll grab one for you Dana
However I do plan to bring some kind of tool with me on th efinal day as I will take a momento from “our house”
Steve, Do you or does anyone know what happened to the wooden seats? I seem to have read something somewhere about fans unscrewing and carting some off on the last day before the end of the season when they would have been replaced. I would take one of those and my wife would just have to live with it. But those plastic things could have just come from anywhere and I’m not paying that kind of money to anyone. You’ll have to hide that tool pretty well, however, from those eagle-eyed security people.
It’s been like 20 yrs since those original seats were removed and the plastic one put in but I bet someone at the NYC Parks Dept knows.
I’m born and raised in Brooklyn NY so I’ll figure a way to smugle a screwdriver or two into Shea. My wife is good too she gets away with brining bottles of Diet Coke into Shea, We’re the baseball version of Bonnie and Clyde LOL
What I want to know is what did they do with those wavy metal blue and orange things that used to be on the outside of the stadium? I’d love a few of those.
Hi Dana Subie,
I do not know why there aren’t more fans upset about the new pricing…I have been a loyal fan since Shea was built…i could ride my bike to the ballpark…I have loge seats behind the plate in section 2…Mets org has decided that the best they can do is move me way down the 3rd baseline
and offer me seats at 125 per seat, my current seat price probably averages 42….20,000 for a pair of just OK tix is mind numbing…I can take my son to Philly for the day and get great seats for less money including the travel and meals…my heart is breaking that after all these years i am priced out of going to a ballpark in NYC….
I would hope there are enough disgruntled fans to push back at corporate…
Beautifully put, Dana and all. You know, there’s always a war inside me between my love for baseball and the Mets, and the more inhumane aspects of baseball.
I was thinking about this very thing yesterday, as I was running around my very working-class neighborhood, and seeing the little Mets banners and chachkes proudly displayed. They’ve got me, and all those people in my neighborhood. They know I am hooked, that all of us are hooked, and that even if we can’t go to as many games next year, we will still watch all those games on SNY. They have what I need, and I’ll take it in whatever form I can get. I’m a junkie. It’s not right.
*tolls to Phila. from Northern NJ – about $7 round trip
*gas to Phila from Northern NJ – about $25 round trip (I drive a hybrid)
*ticket for a mezzanine-equivalent seat at Citizens Bank Park – $30
*parking at CBP – $11
* Some Bulls BBQ and a beer – $20
*Watching the Mest beat the Phils in their yard – priceless.
and a lot cheaper than the cost of just the ticket at Citifield.
You did the same math as i have….and yes Theresa, I am hooked too…
However interestingly, my son Skylar and I have gone on a Amtrak baseball holiday…Nats, Orioles, Mets, Yanks, Phils & RedSox….Skylar(who is a hardcore baseball player & lover of the game at 10yrs old), enjoyed Camden Yards over every other park(including Shea where we have really nice seats and big time fans)…the reason was that the Oriole players were accessable to fans before and after the game….they were shaking hands and signing balls and management encouraged kids to take part in activites that included players and staff….i think that baseball although a big biz has to get back to basic fan/team relationships…if big city baseball becomes a corporate perk, I bet you will see more splinter leagues like Buddy Harelson is doing so nicely with on LI….there will be two Baseballs, MLB and a roots version the “people’s baseball” played and watched for love of the game…….
I am of course completely in agreement with the fear and discontent being expressed by commenters here. But it will be very hard for me, as it will be for you, if the Mets price themselves out of my life. Can people tell me where they are getting this information about the price of tickets in Citifield? I would like to write about this.
Dana: The Mets have an interactive site that talks about the seating levels and the prices for the most expensive seats.
http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/citifieldseats/index.jsp
They are saying upper deck seats (if you can get them) will “average” about $19, but I think that’s because they are still using a system that prices based on the desireability of the game – so that some will be $30 others will be $12. When you consider that everyone who doesn’t want to pay $125 for a seat will be vying for those, you need to add a Stub Hub premium when considering the cost of those Upper deck seats.
Here’s a really good column from Newsday on the subject.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spwally315783478jul31,0,6275472.column