Marlins selling Halladay Perfect Game tickets

[RichardSimon]

I don't know if this is a common practice, perhaps it has happened in the past, but the Florida Marlins will now be selling perfect game tickets that were unused for Halladay's perfect game.
Here is the link to the story:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gh9eFIpEtXLFPP2MuDPpkQEB9CawD9G207MO0

[scooter729]

Interesting story, Richard. I am not 100% sure, but I believe someone I know purchased many tickets to the 2nd Roger Clemens 20 strikeout game from the Detroit Tigers after the game happened. He bought tickets which were the cheapest available ($2.50 I think, must've been bleachers or SRO, plus it was 1996), but I do think the Tigers made these available after the actual game took place.

[Scott Garner]

Baseball teams have routinely printed box office tickets to a number of historic games after the fact since the mid 1990's.

Some examples of this include: tickets to Dave Winfield's 3,000th hit, Roger Clemens' 2nd 20 strikeout game ticket (at Detroit in 1996), Mark McGwire's 62nd HR and 70th HR in 1998, Kevin Brown's no-hitter at SF in 1997. All of these tickets, with the exception of the two McGwire games that I mentioned, are box office style tickets and have the actual PRINT DATE on the ticket (usually in the margin to the left), which is the give away that the ticket was printed after the fact. The problem with purchasing tickets like these is that they retain very little value over time. My experience has been that true ticket collectors are interested in the real deal, not souvenir reprint tickets.

BTW, one way to avoid this problem as a collector is to only purchase "season ticket" style tickets to games like these. This way you can avoid "manufactured memorabilia" produced by greedy MLB upper management. I guess the temptation of being able to boost attendance dollars is just too great for some organizations. Sad, but true.... With regards to tickets to Halliday's perfect game, there already appear to be a multitude (shitload) of tickets (both box office and season tickets) readily available on eBay. Why even bother to buy a reprinted ticket when so many originals exist in the hobby? Food for thought...

[baseball tourist]

I don't know if this is a common practice, perhaps it has happened in the past, but the Florida Marlins will now be selling perfect game tickets that were unused for Halladay's perfect game.
Here is the link to the story:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gh9eFIpEtXLFPP2MuDPpkQEB9CawD9G207MO0

Thanks Richard...I was hoping to pick up a ticket from this game. Have collected a few 'after the fact' through the team's box office throughout the years. The toughest was the last Ripken streak game ticket. chris

[T206Collector]

That I attended both David Cone's and David Wells' perfect games at Yankee Stadium and after each game I was able to find a discarded ticket -- for Wells it was on the floor a couple rows ahead of mine; for Cone it was in a pothole on River Ave.

Nuts!

[mcgwirecom]

Good post Scott!

My nephew called me and told me they were doing this. I told him just about word for word what Scott wrote. I know Seattle did it for Nolan Ryan's last game and Detroit did it for Clemens 2nd 20 strikeout game. I was just getting into ticket collecting at that time and bought a bunch. After a while someone had mentioned the date code on the ticket showing they were made after the fact. It really made me mad and opened my eyes. As Scott said, now I just stick to the season ticket. But in 1998 the Cardinals reprinted McGwire's 62nd and 70th homerun SEASON tickets as a gift for season ticket holders. AND THERE S NO WAY TO TELL ITS A REPRINT! I had purchased multiple tickets to all of his September games. Luckily I had sold my extras before the Cardinals sent out the reprints and flooded the market! They also did this in 1999 with his 500th homerun. I am not sure if they did it for Griffeys 500th which happened there.

If you look on Ebay most people just bid on the season tickets. Mostly because they are much nicer looking, but also because people have seen this reprint thing happen! Since the advent of StubHub it shouldn't be so difficult to find nice unused season tickets. A lot of people are now buying up season tickets to re-sell. When you re-sell on StubHub they do not deal with the mailing of tickets. You buy the season ticket, send in the ticket numbers and StubHub disables that ticket so the buyer can print out another new one at home. So the seller can actually make two profits, one from selling the ticket and another from selling the disabled ticket later if it is a significant game. For guys like me who want to go to the game with a season ticket in hand, it makes it tough! I wanted to buy a season ticket to Stephen Strasburg's first MLB game and also attend and I found it pretty hard to do! ( he is supposed to make his 1st start against Pirates next week)

[ss]

The Marlins draw very few fans, many games with only "hundreds" in the stands. I believe these are the actual unsold tickets.

[D. Bergin]

Says in the article it's the actual unused tickets.

I guess the sad thing about this is that a team who has won two World Series in fairly recent history, gets Montreal Expos type attendance numbers.

[baseballart]

Says in the article it's the actual unused tickets.

I guess the sad thing about this is that a team who has won two World Series in fairly recent history, gets Montreal Expos type attendance numbers.

Or perhaps even 1960s Chicago Cubs attendance figures. For example, 1962, the Cubs only drew 609,802, averaging 7,528. And if I recall correctly, they had one game in 1965 with under 800 fans attending.

Times can certainly change for a franchise, as I recall the Expos hitting 2 million plus in 1979-82 when I was in Montreal. When the Olympic Stadium was full, it was deafening. When it was empty, it was the worst stadium in baseball (well, maybe the Kingdome was close)

Max

[Gary Dunaier]

I bought one of the "tickets," more out of curiosity than anything else. Doubt anyone else here at the Net 54 will, so for those of you who might be curious here's what the final product looks like...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1332/4723313446_f197f3d5dd_b.jpg
(Barcode digitally removed from image for security purposes.)

I knew ahead of time that the ticket would be printed on generic Ticketmaster stock, and that it would have a printing date indicating that it was printed after the fact.

[mcgwirecom]

See in the lower left corner it has the date code that shows it was purchased on June 10th after the actual date of the game. thats why most collectors won't touch them.

[HRBAKER]

See in the lower left corner it has the date code that shows it was purchased on June 10th after the actual date of the game. thats why most collectors won't touch them.

That was my thought. Why would anyone buy these?

[Scott Garner]

See in the lower left corner it has the date code that shows it was purchased on June 10th after the actual date of the game. thats why most collectors won't touch them.

I'm just restating the obvious. Why collect manufactured memoribilia when so many "real" season tickets are still available? When you attempt to resell the tickets printed after the fact, there is no market for them. IMHO ;)

[mr2686]

So, just so I'm clear...on the example ticket on the previous page, is the printing date A10Jun0 meaning June 10th 2010? I've seen some tickets with a similar type code and some with no code. If no code like this, can you tell when it was printed? Thanks

[Scott Garner]

So, just so I'm clear...on the example ticket on the previous page, is the printing date A10Jun0 meaning June 10th 2010? I've seen some tickets with a similar type code and some with no code. If no code like this, can you tell when it was printed? Thanks

Hi Mike,
Yes, you understand correctly.
If no code, there is no way to know when they were printed. Usually box office "ticketmaster" type tickets have this printing date code. Buying the nicer alternative "season ticket" style stock immediately after the event occured is a better option. Not only are these more attractive, but all of these season tickets were issued BEFORE the season began.
I hope this helps...

[mr2686]

Thanks Scott! It looks like I do have one 3000 hit ticket in my collection that was printed after the fact, so I'll probably go back and replace that one. I was curious about your opinion about "league pass tickets" or "media pass tickets" for a particular year and team when someone had a no-hitter, etc. Do you consider those when looking for specific tickets? I'm kinda on the fence about those.

[Scott Garner]

Thanks Scott! It looks like I do have one 3000 hit ticket in my collection that was printed after the fact, so I'll probably go back and replace that one. I was curious about your opinion about "league pass tickets" or "media pass tickets" for a particular year and team when someone had a no-hitter, etc. Do you consider those when looking for specific tickets? I'm kinda on the fence about those.

Mike,
I wouldn't go there either. They are less desirable as a ticket collector.

[HRBAKER]

To me these Halladay "Perfect Game" tickets are nothing more than a reprint of an actual game ticket just like a reprint of a card.

[Gary Dunaier]

To me these Halladay "Perfect Game" tickets are nothing more than a reprint of an actual game ticket just like a reprint of a card.

Which, I think, would be more "acceptable" to collectors if they were marketed as such. Printed on real ticket stock, from the same printers as real tickets, but with a nonsense bar code and a non-existant section and seat location (for example, using the Halladay perfect game as an example, a seat in section 501, whereas in reality the highest numbered section in the Marlins' ballpark is 456).