In a hot and muggy night at Wrigley Field, the Houston Astros beat the Chicago Cubs 9-7 in 11 innings. The Cubs lost four straight games for the first time since June 26-29.

Before the game, I helped a friend sell four limited view seats (face value $28) he had bought on August 2. This was the same friend that let me sneak down to $300 seats that same day. We took a lap around Wrigley and could not find any buyers. Next, we stood on the corner of Sheffield Ave. and Waveland Ave. and could not find any buyers. I was concerned we would not even be able to give away the tickets since no fans even asked us how much. Scalpers would only offer us $5 per ticket. The market for Cubs tickets was officially dead. Finally, a scalper offered us $10 each ($40 total), so we took it.

The lack of demand for tickets was confirmed when the Cubs posted that 39,846 people attended last night’s game. It was the first time the Cubs have drawn less than 40,000 since Friday, May 30 vs. the Colorado Rockies when they drew 39,686. Generally, when ticket prices are high people will opt to buy Standing Room Only (SRO) seats – driving up the attendance at Wrigley Field. However, since there were no buyers last night and tickets were cheap, fans could buy tickets for less than face value rather than buying SRO from the box office.

Cubs Ticket Buying Tip for April, May and September: Tickets during those months are much cheaper than in June, July and August. If you look at the Cubs attendance during April and May of this season, they mainly drew over 40,000 in weekend games and under 40,000 during weekday games. The same thing generally occurs in September. As I wrote late last week, the market for Cubs games declines over Labor Day weekend (and especially in September). However, this year will be different since the only remaining games in September after tonight are versus the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals. Both teams the Cubs need to beat in order to make the playoffs.