I had gotten my season ticket renewal notice in the mail two weeks ago. Last week, John, my personal representative, emailed me this follow up.
I wanted to check in with you and see if you had any questions regarding your 2011 New York Mets Season ticket invoice that you should have received last week. Your tickets went down 21% from last season and we have now started our new Amazin Mets Perks (AMP) Program.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the new prices or the AMP Program.
Thank you,
John
My response to him was short and to the point. I said that I would not be renewing. That despite the price reduction, it didn’t make up for the many years of obscene price gouging. Thus, I would not be committing to another year of mediocre baseball.
Personally, what finally made me decide to say no was the brash arrogance that the front office exhibited toward its fans. Their credo seemed to be that the fans owe for the right to root for the Mets in person. Building a new stadium gives ownership the right to gouge your fans even more. And with a cozy capacity of 40,000 seats, the average Mets fan who liked the confines of the Shea upper deck, became the forgotten child lost in the shadows of the Ebbetts Club.
In other words, all of the goodwill that the Wilpons had been built up during my ten years as a season ticket holder, was gone.
It was in August 2000 when I struck gold. I bought the “pennant pack”, which was tickets to the last fifteen home games of the season. With them I had the right to purchase those same field level seats for the playoffs. I never dreamed that I would attend 8 incredible playoff games. Unfortunately the last game ended with the Yankees celebrating their World Series title on our field.
I held on to these seats, riding the highs and lows of our team’s fortunes over the next ten years. Even during the losing seasons, I never regretted renewing.
I will continue to root passionately and fanatically for the Mets. And I still hope to attend many games. But I am not ready to jump on the bandwagon that things have truly changed. I want to see some results first.
