I Got The Blues; The Virtual Waiting Room Blues

January 24, 2009

Today is one of those days that by afternoon I’ll be so wiped out that, well, I don’t even know the cure for it yet. The irony is, I’ll likely be sitting around all
day.

 

Yes, today is the general onsale date for those ever-coveted, highly-sought-after tickets to Red Sox games at Fenway Park.

 

In December, tickets went on sale in packs of four (Sox Packs): you get three, what some call lousy games, and one decent game. Additionally, tickets for select games early in the season and September are released for sale at that time, as well. Anyone that lives in a 200-mile radius of Boston knows (or should know) that April and early May could be freeeeeeezing, or so darn hot that a ticket to
Fenway is a gamble. September games will bring cool nights but hot baseball so it sort of averages out. But today, the rest of the tickets are opened up to those who are paying attention. Tickets for warm summer nights in Boston. Tickets for Interleague games. Tickets to Fenway Park.

 

Of course, these remaining games that go onsale today have their exceptions, too. No Opening Day; no Yankee games; no Monster Seats; no Bud Roof Tables. These all go on sale later. You see, the owners of the Red Sox feel pity to those of us who want tickets. They allow us the freedom of having our Mastercard charges spread over a four or five month period. You need to remember, tickets to Fenway Park are the most expensive in the Major Leagues. I buy for a family of four so IF I can even get tickets, they do a job on my Mastercard.

 

Come 10:00 a.m., I will be sitting in the VWR (Virtual Waiting Room) for hours
and hours. I wish it wasn’t Virtual because I truly would like them to serve a continental breakfast. OK, since it is Virtual, they should provide video games or we should be able to talk to each other or something. It’s unbelievably boring but hectic. I’m pretty naïve when it comes to ticket buying. You’d think after all these years and times of sitting, I’d figure something out to ease the pain of the VWR, but nope. Not me. I absolutely have the worst luck in the world. I never can get in. I now have wireless (yes, I know, welcome to the 21^st Century) so my waiting can be done anywhere I want. But, I still stay in my little corner of my ‘office’ so I don’t hear the kids fighting, the dog barking, etc. Waiting.

 

I have friends, that for some reason can get in and out in a matter of minutes. Don’t know how they do it. Luck? Who knows? Maybe there is a trick that they know of and I don’t. If it is luck, well than, my chances of grand things like winning Powerball are ever-increasing. My chances grow greater every onsale day. Hopefully.

 

Gone are the days when you can go the day of the game and
score just about any seat category you’d like. The good ol’ days!

 

I do a lot of work ahead of this sale to try to figure out which games I’ll need / want. I have grids, schedules, index cards with first, second, third choices, not that it matters. I always try to approach life with the glass half-full. Since I have a limited season ticket package, I already have ten games. I have unfortunate circumstances around this package. I have four in my family and only three seats to my package. My son was an infant when I got this package and didn’t need a seat. Thinking the Red Sox would be reasonable, I could ‘upgrade’ when he could sit up, but nope. Unfortunately (or should I say fortunately) the Red Sox went and won a World Series championship since then and tickets became virtually impossible to get. The Red Sox now limit your ticket buying, which makes matters worse. Since I already have tickets, they see no need for me to keep buying them. What they don’t understand is that I am buying a lot of my tickets to match up the games I need for my little guy to be able to come so we might be able to go as a family to “Family-Friendly Fenway.” But, of course, since he doesn’t have a Mastercard, he can’t buy his own darn tickets so they limit me. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

 

So, as I wait in the VWR, I’ll be thinking of the sights, sounds, and smells of Fenway Park. You know, virtually. My favorite are the sounds. My ears are my strongest sense. There is no way to duplicate that. I’ll have a window open to my friends on the message  board I belong to, reading how they successfully bought their limits of Mets tickets, Rays tickets, warm summer night tickets. And me, I’ll be sitting, waiting, waiting waiting. Oh, the pleasures of being a Red Sox fan.     

Written by mlblogsrsbleacherblog Posted in Dailies Tagged with Fenway, Red Sox., tickets, VWR