Sports Fans please explain baseball in particular...

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
So one of my buddies in the financial district gives me a couple of fancy tickets to a baseball game downtown Toronto tonight.

Now this is not my first B Ball game and we usually just pass these kinds of tickets on to the kids, but it was a great evening weather wise and I got Linda wound up to going down to the game for a night out as a break.

Suffice to say we will NOT be doing it again.

First up Parking .......$30 yeah that's thirty your eyes are not deceiving you.

Then a couple of high price drinks......nothing fancy just a beer and cooler ......cha ching .....$20

So we find our seats right behind home base. Order a smoked brisket hoagie each and another beer cha ching ....$40 after including tip.

Then we settle down to watch the game. LA Dodgers were in town to play the Blue Jays. Why they bothered to come over I don't know, Blue Jays could just have sent them a white flag.

So I haul out my phone and begin looking up on google what the Blue Jay players get paid...:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:...and another :eek: and I am still in shock. :(:eek:


Here we have celebrity Jose Bautista getting paid $14 Million per annum on a 5 year contract with renewal for a possible 6th year that would net him a total of $79 Million over the 6 years and he cannot hit the ball.

Not only that it did not look like either sides pre-Madonna's had any interest in playing the game with any kind of effort going in on either side.

I just don't get it.:bang::bang::bang::mad::mad: It makes me feel I am alien to the planet.:tantrum: That the world is on its head :crazy:to pay a person that kind of money to hit a baseball.:pullhair:

Its not just baseball I feel this way about, add any pro sport to the list and I feel the same way.

Yeah I get the hours of training etc that has gone into their careers but hey take a look at the effort that has gone into Mikes Intarsia and tell me why he should not be getting $5 million for each of his boxes.

We called it quits at the point in time that the Blue Jays were 10 runs down. When we got up we had not realized half the stadium had already left. :eek:

I don't have anything against the sports men or woman its the fans that I don't get spending that kind of coin and buying all the paraphernalia that keeps this abomination alive and prospering while they get cleaned out of their hard earned coin.

Sorry for the rant but I must be getting old my value system is totally out of wack with the rest of society. Brent you dessert seems more attractive everyday when I encounter this part of our world. Then we expect kids to go study hard and find a decent job. Yeah right. Its no wonder the summer golf camp my son works at during his University vacation charges $299 per week for the kids to attend and they have no shortage of takers and parents dropping them off for the week for months on end for some kids. I feel so sorry for them. But hey they all going to be Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson he only earned a paltry $2.2 million dollars for the weekend game and that's only the prize money. Why pass the maths class then.

My apologies for letting off steam but man I struggle to try make sense of these crazy things maybe some alternative views can help me see the light or is it darkness that's needed.
 
Will i agree with you only I don't let it bother me. Those that want to spend their money that way let'm it just is of no interest so me. But then, the people that are into that would think I am crazy for wanting to spend $50 - $100 for a rough sawed board. Different strokes for different folks.

And the one that does get me is the way we put movie star, sports players on pedestals and ask their opinion on important real life things. Three fourths of them are total kooks yet we listen to what they think about .... ahhh never mind, you got me started... I'm going to the workshop
 
They are not being paid to hit the baseball. They are being paid based on what "the company" can make. Just as CEO's make millions of dollars a year. Are they worth it? They are if they make "the company" tens of billions of dollars. Perverted math but, a reality.
 
Yeah, I'm not the worlds biggest sports fan, but I do like to get out and go to our home town ball team at least once a year.

Just kind of a fun night out. And at the minor league level, well, You know the guys aren't playing for the money.
 
Rob, I love to go to games, but I'm lucky enough to have a local AAA team. Parking is $6, although I sometimes ride my bike. Tickets start at $6 and top out at $20. Beers are $6 for 20oz. Usually I just stick with a $5 bag of roasted peanuts in a shell instead of the $6 hot dogs, etc. We also have a NBA D League team, Arena Football and will have an AHL hockey team starting this year as well...can't wait!:)

At least your tickets were free! :p

As to the salaries in professional sports....I will never understand the $$$ but if the teams are willing to pay it and fans keep going to games, it's hard to argue with it.
 
I used to go to the MLB games, but the strikes (1994-1995) really turned me off of them. That strike even went as high as the President Clinton ordering the players and owners back into negotiations (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994%E2%80%9395_Major_League_Baseball_strike).

I do attend the T-Bones baseball games from time to time, which is a local AA team (not affiliated with MLB). The parking is free (first come, first serve, then surrounding shopping area), cost is $6.50 (grass) to $16 for prime, season ticket owners get parking passes for the main lot. Food and beer are reasonable.
 
this is an argument I have constantly with buddies and my bil.

I refuse to pay 100s of dollars for a mediocre seat at any sporting event, parking, 8 dollar hot dogs, etc......

Its always amazed me that pro baseball(since were talking baseball) players earn millions of dollars a year, more in one year than most of the fans paying to see the game make in their lifetimes!
and then the guy earning 15 mil a year, bats 209 for the season.
I don't get it, I don't get it one iota.

If I want to watch a game, Ill flip on the TV, or go watch a good high school game or little league game in my neighborhood.
Much better to watch a bunch of kids who are trying their hardest , even though the parents are usually idiots at games.

I don't see it. 250 dollars a seat,(a cruddy seat) 100 dollars a day in parking and food per person, and the guy earning 75 thousand a year is doing this 5-8 times a year.
ridiculous in my book.

Last time I went to shea stadium(former name of the NY Mets stadium) was when my son was 5.
I purchased a suit at Bonds Men Clothing, and they were giving away free tickets with the purchase of any suit.
A fight between a bunch of drunken morons broke out in the stands near me, they were throwing those 8 dollars beers at each other, some sprayed us, eventually security threw them all out. I left already, if I wanted to visit animals, I would have visited the zoo.
My next door neighbor when I first got married, had season tickets to Yankee stadium. He was a dentist, he could afford it.
He used to leave 4 season passes and his parking pass on my TV set if I was at work whenever he couldn't go to the game.
I never used them.
 
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I love our little Triple-A ball park. Small and cozy. Not a bad seat in the house (and pretty cheap). Three laps around and you have your mile in. Free parking (at the casinos next door). The price of beer and hot dogs must be fixed nation-wide, that is the most expensive part of the deal. Well except the gambling before and afterwards and the hotel spa room. :wave: Guess we could go cheaper, but it's only once or twice a year. (Oh Jim B., we are the farm team for AZ Diamondbacks, as the team used to be the Tucson Rattlers).

I think the only times I ever went to Major League games were always paid for by the company so I guess I didn't mind spending other people's money:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
I don't really understand it either, but whatever floats the boats I suppose. Personally I have a small antipathy to team sports because I always seem to get hurt playing them - rode bulls, saddle bronc (non professionally so no real upside other than the adrenaline kick I was a teenager what can I say), skied triple blacks, other crazy shenanigans - no real problems; one game of volley ball and I have a black eye and a sprained thumb that takes a month to heal.. go figure.

I feel kinda the same way about a lot of music. I can't see spending $100/200/more? to see a show so mostly go to see smaller bands at local venues. Usually have a better time with those anyway :D

That strike even went as high as the President Clinton ordering the players and owners back into negotiations (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994%E2%80%9395_Major_League_Baseball_strike).

I don't get that either.. its a private enterpise.. sort of.. unless there is a problem or they want money and then its congress/the pres involved or the local city buying a new stadium for them.. seems weird to me, I just don't understand.
 
I'm another fan of AAA baseball. The local team here, The Isotopes, is a farm team to the LA Dodgers. They have a very nice stadium, parking is $5 or so, tickets are about $6 to $20. So far, all the games I've gone to were on free tickets, though. I've got some friends with season tickets, and they love to give them away when they can't attend a particular game. The concessions are on par with other similar venues. Not cheap, but not unexpectedly high, either. I was at a concert last Friday at the ABQ Zoo, and was getting a kick out of people complaining about bottled water for $3.50. Get over it people, concessions cost a lot of money at places like zoos and fairs and ballparks. As long as people continue to pay those prices, they will charge them. (And Disneyland is now over $90 per day per person just to get in the gate.)

I did go to Dodgers games in LA during the late '90s, and back then the prices were still pretty reasonable. Nowadays, the prices have gone up, I believe. Never did make it to a Lakers game because the ticket and parking prices were so high. For that kind of money, I'd be expecting Kobe and Shaq to be giving me personal shoulder massages. Well, that and a ride in the Bentley after the game.

Music concerts are much the same thing. I've not gone to a big-name concert since the '90s, because I just can't justify spending $100 to $200 per head to watch a band, when there are tons of great musicians out there playing for peanuts. The Eagles are great, but not $150/hour great. The Ryan McGarvey concert at the Zoo Friday night was $10, and he was smokin' hot. I'm going to go see Toad the Wet Sprocket at a small venue in Santa Fe in a few weeks. Tickets for that show were $34. I normally wouldn't spend that much to see that particular band, but I'm going up there with a buddy, so the music isn't the only reason for buying the ticket.
 
parking, that's another thing that irks me constantly.


seems anywhere you go now, parking is getting higher and higher.

I especially love the hotels that charge premium prices, then tack on 28-35 dollars more a night to park.

ok, back to baseball.

As long as the fans pay, and support it all, the advertisers will keep pumping in money for air time, everyone is making good, except the poor fan who just shelled out 1200 bucks for decent seats for his family of 4, and his team gave up 14 runs and only had 4 hits.

I guess if its your thing, you enjoy it and don't mind spending it. Ofcourse, it could be really bad, you could be a cubby fan.
 
I hate watching baseball games, live or on TV... i find the boring and dull.... but back when I was many many years younger, loved to play the game... never played little league, but we played on the school grounds at recess and lunch hour... more softball than hard ball, and I got to be a pretty decent pitcher. Last I remember playing was officers against enlisted on the ship... first inning enlisted was up 20 to 0... the captain was an ex-jock and the gunnery office an ex-pro player, but the rest of the officers couldn't play for beans. Captain was livid that they lost.
 
It's not only professional teams. Major college sports have gotten ridiculous as well. To get season tickets for University of Tennessee football not only do you have to buy the tickets you are expected to make a yearly donation to get your same seats from year to year.
 
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