From die hard Cubs fan to just plain dead.

Like many of my local brethren, I am a Cubs fan. I guess at one point you could say I was of the die hard variety. In the famous "Bartman" series, I specifically remember game 7, and how I hoped with all my heart, that the Cubs would pull it off and go to the World Series. My head, however, was a bit more realistic. I knew deep down that the night would end in misery, as I literally couldn't watch. I mean, the game was on, but I had my head covered by a pillow, only furtively peeking out when it seemed there was some glimmer of hope. I also remember 1984, when the team was up 2-0 on the Padres, only to watch them dump 3 in a row in the biggest choke fest I had ever witnessed. That is, until Bartman came along. I was screaming at the TV in game 5, alone in my living room at school in Idaho, isolated from the real world. But alas, I think I may have attended my last game at Wrigley Field.

As ticket prices and "fan-demonium" have soared over the years, I have been attending less and less each year. When tickets go on sale to the public, it's almost unfathomable that after a very short time, like a couple of days, all that is left are single seat tickets for 81 games. With 41,118 seats to every home game, that's 3,330,558 tickets gone in a blink of an eye. So that leaves me with StubHub.com, a legal ticket scalping website where ticket prices go up 2x, 3x, hell even 5x face value. And with 2 kids, and 4 tickets to purchase, and hot dogs and pop and beer and cotton candy and peanuts to buy, the average game, with less than average seats, is a piggy bank breaker. That is, for someone like me. Unemployed and lower middle class wage earning even when I have a job.

So, aside from the fact that prices go up every year, as team wins seem to go down every year, we now learn that the Rickett's family, the saviors from everything Tribune and Zell, are just in it for the money after all. In case you haven't heard, there is a "pre-sale" this year. It's open to everyone, of course. Everyone that has enough money to blow between $250 and $500 for 3 hours of "fun at the old ballpark". Oh wait, there's a catch. For this honor, you have to fork up an additional 20%. Getting tickets on the day they go on sale have just gotten even harder. So it seems, the chasm between the haves and have-not's just got a little wider. And I thought Sam Zell was the greedy one.

Flashback yet again. Late 70's, early 80's, the gang used to drive to Skokie, catch the swift to Wrigley, buy a ticket at the gate, and sit in a section all by ourselves, the entire day costing like $20. I know, 30 years of inflation, yada, yada, yada. But that misses the point. It used to be fan friendly, or more to the point, wallet friendly. The brass didn't have some unbelievable marketing tool they could sell back then, but boy do they have one now. As other old ballparks across the nation succumb to time, Wrigley's magnificent wonder only continues to grow.

We used to be very lucky. Some close family friends have some season passes on the home dugout and we have been lucky enough to snare some each year. I was willing to cough up a few extra bucks for the privilege of these premium seats, each year cringing a little bit more as I wrote the check. This year? Those 4 tickets, along with the requisite parking pass, is almost $500. That's like 2 weeks of groceries for us. Or almost half a mortgage payment. How can I justify that? No, I am afraid that short of finding some tickets on the street, our Cub watching days at Wrigley Field have come to a close. I guess I am going to have to wait until my kids are grown up and can afford to take me to a ball game, because the Cubs have priced themselves out of my budget. Thanks a lot Rickett's family. I guess they're keeping one recent tradition alive. Greed.