World Series Game 2: Phillies at Rays

Ideally I would be attending World Series games at Wrigley Field this weekend. However, when the Tampa Bay Rays made the World Series after beating the Boston Red Sox, the Ultimate Sports Wife and I decided to visit her family in Florida. Her family lives in Central Florida – less than a two hour drive from many major Florida cities – Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Gainesville and Daytona Beach. So with the World Series coming to St. Petersburg, FL, we flew down to Florida for Game 2.

Obtaining Tickets
I did not wait to buy tickets outside of Tropicana Field before the game. My rule for championship games is that most transactions take place before everyone arrives at the stadium. Thus, there are either no tickets available or if there are tickets demand is greater than supply.

Instead, I bought tickets through craigslist.org. Initially, I checked my usual “market” sites (stubhub.com and ticketsnow.com). I realized that ticket prices continued to decline and actually wondered if we could buy tickets to the World Series for under face value. However, with ticket prices hovering between $170 and $200 for upper deck seats (face value was $100) I found an ad on craigslist for an upper deck single for $120. Normally if a price is too low, the poster will receive many responses and never reply to your email. However, the poster responded to my email within a few minutes.

In order to ensure the transaction (and tickets) were real I asked for his phone number to his first reply to my initial inquiry. He responded with a number and I continued to ask more personal questions with each reply. In each of his replies he answered my questions so I figured we had a “legit” transaction. In fact, he even had a second ticket available (making the total $250 for 2 tickets). With these tickets being the cheapest World Series tickets in years (not to mention this year’s SRO tickets in Philadelphia were selling for $600 each), the Ultimate Sports Wife decided she would attend her first World Series game.

I asked the poster if I should pay via PayPal and he could email me the TicketFast tickets. He said no and that he would meet us at the Orlando Airport when we arrived – enforcing the legitimacy of the sale.

The Exchange
We landed at Orlando Airport on Thursday morning. We met “Ed the Student” in front of the Dollar Rental Car counter. We asked if we could take his picture and he agreed.

Ticket Scalping Tip: If possible, try to take a picture of your ticket seller. If they are hawking fake tickets you at least have a picture of the culprit.

The Game
The Ultimate Sports Wife wrote about most of the details of our Game 2 experience. The Rays defeated the Phillies 4-2 in the 5th World Series game I have attended and one of the “perceived” most crowded. With the Rays experiencing one of their first 40,000+ crowds of the season, the concourses of the stadium were crowded and lines for concessions were extremely long before the game. Rather than wait in those lines, we found our seats.

In the middle of the 1st inning, I headed back to the food court on the first level. Since the Rays were batting, there were no lines for food. By the top of the 2nd inning, I was back in our seats with all of the necessary sustenance for the game – nachos with a lot of toppings, steak tips and a diet Pepsi.

Tropicana Field: Red Sox at Rays

This past weekend, Nicole and I traveled to Florida to visit her family. Both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were home while we were there. With Tampa about a 90 minute drive from her family’s home, I chose to attend only one game rather than drive down to Tampa twice. Thus, I had a decision to make. Under my guidelines of prioritizing which game to attend, I would normally choose to attend a NFL game over a MLB game – the main reason being that there are only 8 home games for the Buccaneers vs. 81 home games for the Rays. The Rays will most likely be home the next time we are in Florida.

However, since I had attended the Buccaneers home playoff game vs. the Giants last January and had not attended a Rays game since June 1, 2000 (not to mention the Rays were playing the Red Sox in a 1st / 2nd place AL East matchup), I chose to attend the Rays game last night.

I arrived in St. Petersburg a few minutes before 7 pm. The Tropicana Field parking lots were full so I parked in a strip mall parking lot for $15.

Obtaining Tickets
There were quite a few scalpers and fans that had extra tickets. One fan approached me and wanted $20 for his ticket. I only wanted to pay $10 which he accepted (face value was $19). If I had been more aggressive, I may have been able to find a free ticket. There were more and more fans with extra tickets as I got closer to the box office. I broke my first ticket buying rule - never buy from the first person with extra tickets.

The Game
The Red Sox started the game by hitting two home runs in the 1st inning and never looked back. They beat the Rays 13-5. There were quite a few milestones in last night’s game:

1) For the first time since August 3, 2003, the Red Sox hit six home runs in a game.
2) The home run hit by Jason Bay never actually made it over the fence. It hit the third catwalk and never came down, which by Tropicana Field ground rules is considered a home run. According to Wikipedia, it is speculated that this was the first time a ball in play has struck the C ring catwalk.
3) Daisuke Matsuzaka set the record for most wins by a Japanese pitcher in one season with his 17th win.
4) Matsuzaka also joined Roger Clemens and Boo Ferriss as the only Red Sox pitchers to start a season 17-2.
5) David Ortiz passed Edgar Martinez for 2nd place of all time home runs hit as a designated hitter.
6) Mike Timlin set the all-time record for relief appearances for a right handed pitcher. Last night was his 1,051st relief appearance.
7) Jason Varitek passed Carlton Fisk with his 158th home run as a Red Sox – most all-time for a Red Sox catcher.

Tropicana Field
About halfway through the game, and with the Red Sox leading 12-1, I wandered around the center field area of Tropicana Field. The Rays have almost turned center field into an amusement park with carnival and baseball games for fans to play. In addition, there are two sit-down restaurants; the Center Field Brewhouse and the Batter's Eye Restaurant. The Rays also have the Cuesta-Rey Cigar Bar which offers a large selection of cigars to purchase. Next to the Batter's Eye Restaurant is the Sting Ray Touch Tank where fans can pet sting rays.