I have a confession to make. I have bought tickets from a scalper.
Once for a sold-out Madonna concert a few years back. (I got a great deal… cheaper than face value for what was an amazing show.) And once this past summer to a near sell-out Jays game. Sorry Uncle Ted. But it was to see the hottest team in the Majors at the time (the Cubs) take on the Jays on Fathers Day and because I decided to go to the game last minute I was unable to go through proper channels to get good seats.
While I knew it was wrong both times, it was relatively easy, as scalpers normally swarm sporting venues in Toronto. So when tickets I had lined up through legitimate means fell through for Sunday’s Jays game in New York, their last ever appearance at Yankee Stadium, I thought: “No problem. We’ll just get seats from a scalper.”
When I say “we”, I should mention my partner in crime was none other than Sportsnet anchor Evanka Osmak. She and I, along with another friend hopped on the Number 4 train heading for the Bronx and Yankee Stadium with no tickets in hand, but with hope in our hearts and no doubt in our minds that we would get to see that historic ballgame. And I don’t mean just on tvs at Stan’s Sports Bar across the street from the park!
How disappointing for us to realize that scalpers don’t seem to hang out at Yankee Stadium. We wandered around feeling like criminals waiting for the sounds of “who’s looking for tickets?”.
Instead we ran into other fans just like us scrambling to get ducats to the game. We decided to take a shot at the box office. Word on the street was that there were a few tickets left. There sure were, but at $350 a pop! Disappointed, but not completely discouraged, we walked over to Stan’s plotting our next move.
Evanka had gotten a number from someone back in Toronto who “had a guy” if we needed tickets. His name was Pete and we were told we could call him if we were in ticket trouble. Well, with the game about to start, we were in trouble alright, so we called. Pete answered right away only to inform us he could have easily helped us out but he had just left the stadium minutes before! Pete promised to find “another guy” who could hook us up. A few minutes later we got a phone call from someone named Rich. Rich said he’d take care of us no problem and that he’d call us back in 10 minutes. Hopeful once again, we ordered another drink at Stans as we watched Andy Pettite throw out the first pitch on tv.
Ten minutes turned into a half hour which turned into an hour.
Every minute of time that elapsed took away some of our optimism.
Finally, tired of waiting, we dialed the number that had come up on Evanka’s phone when Rich called, to ask him what was going on. He said he had our tickets and was at the bar next door.
Jackpot! We hurried over to what was a sketchy looking establishment, scanning the room for someone who looked like a scalper. There he was in the corner holding a courier envelope filled with tickets. Sixty bucks each later we triumphantly marched across the street, tickets in hand, to enter The House That Ruth Built.
You can only imagine our shock when the usher scanned our tickets and then asked us if we got them from four guys across the street.
“What do you mean?” we innocently asked.
“The tickets are no good.” he barked. “They’ve already been used.”
We’d been had!
Dejected we decided to head back to Stans, all the while hearing the roar of the fans cheering inside the stadium, resigned to the fact we would indeed be watching the game on tv, just steps away from baseball’s most hallowed shrine. As we crossed the street we spotted Rich high-tailing it down the sidewalk! We yelled at him to wait up. Two other guys were after him too. Turns out they had also bought unusable tickets from him. Rich surprisingly stopped and sheepishly gave us back our money all the while saying he had no idea why the tickets didn’t work.
It was then that Evanka looked at me and said “I have to see a game at Yankee Stadium. I’ve never been and this is the only chance I’ll get”.
I knew what she wanted to do. I also knew that even though I have been to a handful of games there before, I could not sit across the street and watch the game on TV.
We marched back over to the box office prepared to shell out $350 each for a game already in the 5th inning so we could see history. Throwing down our credit cards at the lady in the ticket window, we heard what was music to our ears. She suddenly had single seats coming up on her computer at $48 a piece! So with that we bought our tickets to see the final Jays game ever at Yankee Stadium.
While I didn’t quite have to sell my soul to get inside, the irony was not lost on me when I looked down at my ticket to see I was sitting in section 666.
Even though it was all worth it and our scalper adventure makes for a better story, next time I’ll do what many of the other Canadians we ran into did, as late as a few days before the game.
Call Stub Hub.