The Mets Police

I have been asked to post another open letter to the Giants regarding personal seat licenses.

Mr. Mara,

I am writing not as a Giants fan, but as the wife of a
long time Giants fan. My husband and his family have
been season ticket holders for over 40 years. They
have followed the team regardless of the location or
the quality of the product you have put on the field.
In the ten years I have known my husband, he has
missed only one game…for our wedding. I have always
felt your ticket prices were disproportionate to the
experience, but who am I to interfere with a family
tradition. I just read about the price for the
personal seat license. As you can imagine, being a
40+year season ticket holder, my husband’s seats fall
in the $20,000 + category.  Now, I’m not going to lie
to you, we’re probably one of the few ticket holder’s
in this category who can afford to pay this price
outright; but we’re not. If you are going to ask us to
invest upwards of $40,000 in your product, you are
going to have to give us (as well as other investors)
a better answer than “the price of the new stadium
went over budget”. For the record, that answer hardly
inspires confidence in the financial leadership of
this venture. No, you owe it to your “investors” to
provide a detailed explanation for the overtures,
complete financial records as well as a sound
financial plan for the future. At that point,
investors will have been given the appropriate
information to decide on the level of their
investment. I do not expect you to call each season
ticket holder directly, but I do expect you to call my
husband (Alexander B Swingle—646-). We will be happy
to help you arrange a town hall meeting at which you
can personally discuss the above.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Theresa Ryan, MD

Good link.

Yankee Stadium Insider Blog: So, the new Stadium is nearly upon us – what current Stadium traditions need to go the way of the old Stadium?

Meanwhile at Shea – what traditions even exist? We have an Apple but the mean Wilpons won’t let it come. We have a Former Franchise pitcher that doesn’t love us. Mr. Met II has always seemed a cheesy replica of the original to me. Planes that have to fly over Shea magically can fly somewhere else if tennis needs to be played.

I can’t think of anything. Suggestions?

So the early edition of the Star Ledger had this on the front page:

Giants fans and the action in the stands
 
New stadium to offer opportunity to invest in personal seat licenses

This headline made my blood pressure explode. Yep “investing” that’s what we’re doing. Now when you read the actual article it’s quite fair. It discusses how some folks have made a profit with some teams PSLs and fans of other teams such as the Panthers have taken a beating.

So I went on nj.com to grab the story and now I see an updated headline…

New Giants stadium will offer fans personal seat licenses

by Maura McDermott

Sunday July 20, 2008, 10:44 AM

So that’s an interesting change.

Unfortunately, most people will see the print edition, and headline skimmers will come away with the message that the Giants are now in the inverstment business.

Regardless, an interesting read can be found here.

The original version is here.

And remember, the Giants cannot compete in the current economic environment without a new stadium or PSLs.

Why exactly is a new building being built at the Meadowlands anyway?  What exactly is wrong with Giants Stadium?  Is their inability to compete in the NFL?  They haven’t won a Super Bowl in 7 months!

Hit comments below if anyone has a good reason why we need this thing.

I preloaded some stuff for today so I could hit the beach….here’s something from earlier in the week about a cool 1972 video.

Cool 1972 video

I got the chance to watch a few innings of a July 9, 1972 game between the Dodgers and Mets at Shea Stadium. It was quite a pitching matchup with Tom Seaver facing Claude Osteen, both of whom would be 20-game winners that season.