MLB and Union talk major rule changes

[Ohfan67]

50 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Baseball is much cheaper than the other major sports.  You can literally go to a game at Camden Yards for $20-30.  Bring your own food, get a bleacher seat for $15, maybe buy a soda, park off-site for $10.  I don't quite how you're getting to $500 for a family of four.  My family of four goes to OPACY a few times a year and I don't think I've ever spent $300 even while while sitting in $50+ box seats.  You can certainly take a family of four to a game for under $200.  That's far less than an NFL/NHL/NBA/MLS game.

4 tickets at $90 each (good ticket plus ridiculous fees) = $360 (that's actually a bit of an underestimate if you want very good seats)

$25 parking

$20 - 25 each for concessions, average including a quality beer each for mom and dad

It adds up very quickly. 

You are correct that it can be done for less, but I don't get to go enough to enjoy bleacher type seats very much and there's nothing worse for kids that are not that excited about baseball than sitting a mile away from the action. I've been spoiled by attending a lot of college games over the years. The $90 for a ticket including online fee is not even a great seat...just a good seat. 

My wife got the family of four very good seats for my birthday last year (last row of lower seating, slightly under overhang, not quite behind 1st base dugout) and she spent just over $500 on the four tickets after the tacked on fees. I'm not exaggerating about the cost for decent seats. It would be cheaper if we walked up and purchased tickets at the stadium, but the Astros were a hot ticket last spring and we live 90 minutes from the stadium. 

 

p.s. I just looked online and I could probably get the seats I priced above for $90 each for $80ish this year. One of the problems last year was getting four good seats together. The Astros were a hot item. 

p.p.s. I looked online a bit more. I could see the Twins for $80ish a ticket in that area of the park. It's $101 plus the fee for the Rangers for the same tickets. 

 

 

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, Ohfan67 said:

4 tickets at $90 each (good ticket plus ridiculous fees) = $360 (that's actually a bit of an underestimate if you want very good seats)

$25 parking

$20 - 25 each for concessions, average including a quality beer each for mom and dad

It adds up very quickly. 

You are correct that it can be done for less, but I don't get to go enough to enjoy bleacher type seats very much and there's nothing worse for kids that are not that excited about baseball than sitting a mile away from the action. I've been spoiled by attending a lot of college games over the years. The $90 for a ticket including online fee is not even a great seat...just a good seat. 

My wife got the family of four very good seats for my birthday last year (last row of lower seating, slightly under overhang, not quite behind 1st base dugout) and she spent just over $500 on the four tickets after the tacked on fees. I'm not exaggerating about the cost for decent seats. It would be cheaper if we walked up and purchased tickets at the stadium, but the Astros were a hot ticket last spring and we live 90 minutes from the stadium. 

 

 

 

 

So if you have small kids, don’t buy $90 seats!    The O’s allow you to take two kids under 9 for free if you sit in the upper deck.    And news flash, the game is very enjoyable in the upper deck.    And by the way, my season tickets in the lower bowl 13 rows behind 1B cost $60.    It does not cost $90 to buy a good seat at OPACY unless you’re insisting on a premium game or seats that are just ridiculous.   

[Ohfan67]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

So if you have small kids, don’t buy $90 seats!    The O’s allow you to take two kids under 9 for free if you sit in the upper deck.    And news flash, the game is very enjoyable in the upper deck.    And by the way, my season tickets in the lower bowl 13 rows behind 1B cost $60.    It does not cost $90 to buy a good seat at OPACY unless you’re insisting on a premium game or seats that are just ridiculous.   

News flash: I'll sit where I da** well please! And I was specifically talking about the Astros, not the Orioles. I live about 1,500 miles from Camden Yards, which makes the price of attending Orioles games pretty high. 

Take a look at these prices: https://purchase.tickets.com/buy/MLBEventInfo?orgid=18&agency=MLB&pid=8663670&tfl=Houston_Astros-tickets-Houston_Astros:_Tickets:_Astros_Single_Game_Tickets-single_game_tickets-x0-Desktop-Landscape

And you can not purchase four tickets together for many of the "best" bang for the buck areas like the terrace behind home plate (and those seats are still very expensive compared to Camden Yards based on what you guys saying). 

[Ohfan67]

32 minutes ago, Frobby said:

So if you have small kids, don’t buy $90 seats!    The O’s allow you to take two kids under 9 for free if you sit in the upper deck.    And news flash, the game is very enjoyable in the upper deck.    And by the way, my season tickets in the lower bowl 13 rows behind 1B cost $60.    It does not cost $90 to buy a good seat at OPACY unless you’re insisting on a premium game or seats that are just ridiculous.   

Did you think I was talking about Camden Yards? 

[PaulFolk]

55 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

News flash: I'll sit where I da** well please! And I was specifically talking about the Astros, not the Orioles. I live about 1,500 miles from Camden Yards, which makes the price of attending Orioles games pretty high. 

But you're the one who brought up how expensive your tickets are. What Frobby's saying is that there are more cost-effective ones available in most parks (though I'm not familiar with the Astros specifically). The point is that, in general, baseball doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

So if you have small kids, don’t buy $90 seats!    The O’s allow you to take two kids under 9 for free if you sit in the upper deck.    And news flash, the game is very enjoyable in the upper deck.    And by the way, my season tickets in the lower bowl 13 rows behind 1B cost $60.    It does not cost $90 to buy a good seat at OPACY unless you’re insisting on a premium game or seats that are just ridiculous.   

About 10 years ago my sister-in-law's business started getting box seats behind the plate at Camden Yards.  Before then I'm not sure I'd ever sat in the lower deck.  Maybe one time in the outfield bleachers.  Oh, and one time under the overhang down the LF line.

I had a lot of fun in the Mussina-Randy Johnson playoff game sitting in the top row of the upper deck behind the LF foul pole.  Bought tickets from scalpers prior to the game, probably paid $30-40 a head.

I certainly wasn't going to pay $90 each for my kids to go to a game.  And we go fairly light on the concessions, too.  I don't think I've ever had two beers at a single game at Camden Yards.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Ohfan67 said:

Did you think I was talking about Camden Yards? 

Sorry, yes, I did.  Perhaps OPACY is a lot cheaper than in Houston.  I think face value for my sister-in-law's tickets 15 rows behind the plate is $60?  Might even be less.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Shows and concerts are even worse.

Heck we have the Renaissance festival in town and it would cost a family of four 60 bucks to get in the door. 

I took the boys to U2 a couple years ago and the cheap seats were $100 each.

If MLB is too much to afford most areas aren't that far from a minor league park that sells $5-10 general admission seats.

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, PaulFolk said:

But you're the one who brought up how expensive your tickets are. What Frobby's saying is that there are more cost-effective ones available in most parks (though I'm not familiar with the Astros specifically). The point is that, in general, baseball doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

Click on the link I provided and look at the median priced ticket. It is $65 - $68, not including online fees, and you can not get four tickets in a row for $68. You guys seem completely deluded by the very low prices at Camden Yards. The Orioles stink and Angelos was way, way more interested in keeping seats affordable than most owners. And yes, I could buy the worse seats in the house for $25 each plus the online fee and pack in PBJ sandwiches and watch an Astros game through my binoculars. But that is not even close to the cost for a median priced experience at an Astros game. Attending a MLB baseball game for a family of four can easily be, to me, a very expensive outing. Pointing out that the Orioles have some ridiculously cheap seats for families, you can pack in your own food, etc., does not alter the fact that for most a MLB game experience for a family of four gets expensive real fast. 

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I took the boys to U2 a couple years ago and the cheap seats were $100 each.

If MLB is too much to afford most areas aren't that far from a minor league park that sells $5-10 general admission seats.

I go to several college games a year and I split a season ticket package to the local Texas Collegiate League (a summer league that uses wooden bats). The four season tickets to the TCL team includes all you can eat and drink...it's an amazing deal. So I see my fair share, if not more of inexpensive baseball. And my kids are "forced" to see live baseball on a regular basis...which is important to me for some reason. 

[Ohfan67]

4 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Shows and concerts are even worse.

Heck we have the Renaissance festival in town and it would cost a family of four 60 bucks to get in the door. 

There's a big Renaissance festival just north of Houston every fall. We went once in the fall of '17. It was about $20 each for tickets and then food, etc., was crazy expensive. It stung. I have friends who do this kind of thing with their family every month or even every three weeks, but we decided to roll money we would spend on that stuff into the annual family vacation. We usually go camping, so I have spent full weeks in the Rockies for what a couple of those weekend outings cost. And had way more fun with my family than I do watching jousting and the like. 

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Click on the link I provided and look at the median priced ticket. It is $65 - $68, not including online fees, and you can not get four tickets in a row for $68. You guys seem completely deluded by the very low prices at Camden Yards. The Orioles stink and Angelos was way, way more interested in keeping seats affordable than most owners. And yes, I could buy the worse seats in the house for $25 each plus the online fee and pack in PBJ sandwiches and watch an Astros game through my binoculars. But that is not even close to the cost for a median priced experience at an Astros game. Attending a MLB baseball game for a family of four can easily be, to me, a very expensive outing. Pointing out that the Orioles have some ridiculously cheap seats for families, you can pack in your own food, etc., does not alter the fact that for most a MLB game experience for a family of four gets expensive real fast. 

Yes, it can get very expensive if that's the experience you want.  I think Oriole fans forget how good they have it with regards to the price of a professional sporting event.  The walkup $15 bleacher seat at Camden Yards, and bring in a $3 hotdog from the guy outside the gate method is probably one of the least expensive ways to see a top-tier pro sports league in North America.  I used to have DC United season tickets and they were a good deal.  In the new stadium the cheapest tickets are now $25+ fees.

[wildbillhiccup]

The "must face three batters rule" is lame. I mean I get what they're trying to do, but I feel like there are better alternatives. Why not just limit the number of overall substitutions a manager can make each game instead? 

[DrungoHazewood]

29 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

The "must face three batters rule" is lame. I mean I get what they're trying to do, but I feel like there are better alternatives. Why not just limit the number of overall substitutions a manager can make each game instead? 

Traditionalists hold sway in baseball, so why don't we go back to the original rule on substitutes?  Which was you need the opponent's concurrence to make a substitute.  That's why most relief appearances in the period before 1891 were swapping the right fielder with the pitcher.  And, occasionally, someone would have a collision, break an arm, and have to finish the game.

Somewhat more seriously, if you gave a modern manager four subs a game, four of those would be used on pitchers.  If you gave him five, five would be used on pitchers.  You'd have to give him six or seven before he'd even start thinking about pinch hitting or pinch running prior to the 9th inning of a three-run game.  I'd like a rule that says you can only use three pitchers per game, with an allowance for an additional pitcher for each two extra innings.  Since my preference is three, I assume MLB will propose a trial run in the Atlantic League in 2022 of limiting the number of pitchers in a game to seven.

[Frobby]

17 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Click on the link I provided and look at the median priced ticket. It is $65 - $68, not including online fees, and you can not get four tickets in a row for $68. You guys seem completely deluded by the very low prices at Camden Yards. The Orioles stink and Angelos was way, way more interested in keeping seats affordable than most owners. And yes, I could buy the worse seats in the house for $25 each plus the online fee and pack in PBJ sandwiches and watch an Astros game through my binoculars. But that is not even close to the cost for a median priced experience at an Astros game. Attending a MLB baseball game for a family of four can easily be, to me, a very expensive outing. Pointing out that the Orioles have some ridiculously cheap seats for families, you can pack in your own food, etc., does not alter the fact that for most a MLB game experience for a family of four gets expensive real fast. 

Per the attached link, the average price of an Astros ticket last year was $40.25, sixth highest in MLB but nowhere near $90 per ticket.   The Orioles were $29.95, which was 17th MLB.   So the O’s are not dramatically lower than average, and as mentioned, they do have some very family friendly policies. Sorry that you have to deal with the Astros being at the higher end.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/193673/average-ticket-price-in-the-mlb-by-team/