Don’t Be A Schmuck. Choose The Mets 2013

Recently, my former colleague Howard Megdal, who in addition to covering the Mets for the Journal News, wrote a great summary concerning the New York Mets’ ticket prices for 2013

For some perspective, the nine highest price points for season tickets will remain the same. And the bottom eleven price points for season tickets are going up.

As Dean Martin once crooned, “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”

So, let me get this straight; the Mets, who have already stated that their payroll is not going up, and who don’t plan on making a single significant free-agent signing to fill the teams’ several glaring glaring needs, are raising their overall season ticket packages.

That’s not a kick in the head, it’s a kick in the face.

Between the coverage of Megdal and ESPN NY’s Adam Rubin, who write about the Mets organization more comprehensively than anyone, and this recent announcement, I have come to the conclusion that anyone who buys a season ticket package for the 2013 season, is a schmuck.

Mets fans? They’re not schmucks.

People who choose to go to a Mets game in 2013 might be enabling a clueless, toothless and fraudulent ownership whose only being kept in place because the CEO is a close personal friend of the commish. But they’re not schmucks either.

The schmucks, to be clear, are the people spend their hard-earned money on season tickets. These season ticket packages subsidize a baseball team that is unwilling and unable to reciprocate that same financial commitment on the field. You are, in essence, telling them with this purchase, “Attaboy!”

Money raised from season tickets revenue goes in the bank. It won’t go to the bullpen, it won’t go to the outfield, nor will it go behind the plate. It won’t go to a high profile manager or coaching staff, all of whom are being brought back despite two seasons of failure.

Where is it going? It sure as hell isn’t going into your pocket as a return for your loyalty and support.

A season ticket will get you a chance to get an All-Star ticket, but really, if that’s your goal as a Mets fan in 2013, you really are a schmuck.