Buying Red Sox Tickets

I just spent two and a half hours staring at my computer screen, watching it refresh every 30 seconds waiting to buy Sox tickets. This was after I supposedly won the opportunity to buy green monster seats.

Red Sox Ticket Purchase Opportunity - Congratulations

Dear Cranky,

Great news! You've been selected for the opportunity to
purchase Green Monster tickets for a Red Sox home game in
our second chance drawing.

It's more like "you may already be a winner" in Publishers Clearing House. Even if you happen to win the opportunity to buy tickets, its still a long shot and a pretty frustrating process.

The first hour, I was in the Virtual Waiting Room, waiting to be randomly selected. After about an hour, I was selected, and got to pick a game. Here it gets even more annoying. Of course the Yankee games are all gone. I try to select other hot games: Like any September game against a division rival. Sometimes it looks like I have a shot. The game is available. I select two seats (that's the limit here-2 seats for 1 game at $110 each). I even get past the enter secret word screen. I think I've made it. Then I get the dreaded error page.



What do you do here? Keep hitting continue like it says, or does it really mean the game is sold out? I don't know. So I try selecting other games. Maybe earlier in the season games. Maybe midweek games would be easier. Maybe games against crappy teams. Maybe interleague (yuk) games. Maybe midweek, interleague games against crappy teams. Nothing works. Always sold out, or the error page, which really means sold out.

Finally after 2 hours I started going for standing room tickets. Even most of those were sold out. But finally I "lucked out." (if you call paying $64 for two standing room only tickets "lucky") But it's a Sunday afternoon game in May against the Orioles, and I'm a Sox fan, so I'll take it. It's a good deal. I've never been in the Monster seats before.

Even after you hit, you are still worried, though. You have 60 seconds to put in all your info. That's really tough. Especially when you get to country, and have to use a pull down menu to scroll through every country in the fucking world until you get to the U's. That killed at least 10 seconds.

Really, I'm lucky because my wife has connections to get good seats to a couple games a year, and I have a client who usually gets me tickets to at least one game. So this won't be my only opportunity. Really the only way people really get Sox tickets these days is to have some kind of connection, or to pay scalper or ticket agency (legal scalpers) rates. There really is no easy, legitimate way to buy tickets any more. I'm sure this sounds nuts if you are just about anywhere else in the country where your team plays to half empty stadiums, but this is what it's like to be a Red Sox fan.