Can you imagine - a World Series game in St. Pete, Florida? And more impressive, the Rays are playing in the World Series! Wow. Tampa just knocked off the Red Sox (after beating the White Sox). Now game 1 is in St. Petersburg at the Trop.
Caleb (my bro-in-law) came down. Without tickets in hand, we headed to the stadium. Thankfully, a previous colleague taught me the art of scalping tickets. (Thanks Scott!) Stubhub was selling tickets at 3 and 4 times face. Humm. Not a good sign but Stubhub is always more than reality. (My rant about how much I hate ticket brokers and Stubhub will come at a later time. To all you who got burned by buying extra tickets in hopes of selling them for big bucks -- I hope you lost your shirts!)
We started walking around talking to everyone. MLB had setup a "scalping area" around the stadium but later closed it down. Brokers, sellers, and buyers were all at Ferg's. Quickly we found some black guy who wanted to sell us row "A2" seats for 2x face. No thank you. (A2, I don't believe, even exists.) We found a couple who wanted to sell good lower deck seats for 2+x face - over $500 USD, each. No thank you. Around Ferg's we found a ton of tickets. Lots of people were selling - suites for face, uppers for 2x face and less, lowers and press box for 2x face and up. Let's just say that people were selling but I didn't see anybody buying. Finally, we found a guy with section 106 tickets (darn good seats!!!) for face. He had bought them that day for his daughter-in-law and granddaughter but they couldn't make the game. Our luck. He just wanted face for them. Sold!
Watching Game 1 of the 2008 World Series in Tampa in section 106, row N was absolutely an amazing experience!!! Gov. Charlie Christ was sitting in the same row just a few seats over. The atmosphere was electrifying. The cowbells were loud. The fans beside us were all season ticket holders -- quality Rays fans.
If just Tampa had won. The Phillies beat them 3-2. (Full article is below.) Take a look at the photos.
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