The Price Of Being A Fan

 

Check out this Mets playoff ticket from1969.  Five dollars!

Those were the days, Mary Hopkin.  And don't I know it?  

So there was a pre-sale the other day in both Mets and Dodgers Nations for their season ticket....I mean, membership, fans to buy extra tickets for the World Series.  Keep in mind that the membership price for my very good seats in Chavez Ravine is $345. 

Wow, that's high, Len.

Yep, but you ain't heard nothing yet.   For the pre-sale, I normally let my main seat partner buy the extra tickets.   And he did.

For Dodger Stadium, his seat in the very Top Desk for World Series Game 2 went for 500 bucks.  The very same for a potential World Series Game zooms up to almost 800 bucks!   

At Citi Field, I hear the worst seat in the park for a potential Game 7 there was 1,000 dollars.   Granted there are 12,000 less seats there.   Supply and demand.

This is called dynamic pricing and now MLB has joined the ranks of price gouging...or gauging as Kamala Harris would say.   The bigger the demand, the higher the price.   

I called my Dodger rep and she confirmed this was a MLB initiative.

If you kill the golden goose, you don't get any golden eggs.

Dinner last night: Pork lo mein.

This Date in History - October 16

 

Happy birthday in Heaven, Tim McCarver.  The man who taught my mother baseball.

456:  MAGISTER MILITUM RICIMER DEFEATS EMPEROR AVITUS AT PIACENZA AND BECOMES MASTER OF THE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE.

An awful lot to type if you don't really care.

1384:  JADWIGA IS CROWNED KING OF POLAND, ALTHOUGH SHE IS A WOMAN.

If this is a simple mistake, then that Jadwiga must be one ugly lady.

1590:  CARLO GESAULDO, COMPOSER, PRINCE OF VENOSA AND COUNT OFCONZA, MURDERS HIS WIFE, DONNA MARIA D'AVALO AND HER LOVER FABRIZIO CARAFA THE DUKE OF ANDRIA.

Even more to type and I don't really care.

1793:  MARIE ANTOINETTE, WIDOW OF LOUIS XVI, IS GUILLOTINED.  

If you need this basket for the laundry, you better wash it out first.

1834:  MUCH OF THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER IN LONDON BURNS TO THE GROUNDS.

But what about the London Bridges?  Aren't they falling down?

1846:  WILLIAM TG MORTON IS THE FIRST TO ADMINISTER ETHER ANESTHESIA.

Gee, I hope he was a doctor.

1875:  BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY IS FOUNDED IN PROVO, UTAH.

Introduction to Mormons 101 is open for enrollment.

1916:  IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, MARGARET SANGER OPENS THE FIRST FAMILY PLANNING CLINIC IN THE US.

Because not everybody is interested in birthin' babies.

1917:  ACTRESS ALICE PEARCE IS BORN.

Abner!

1923:  COMPOSER BERT KAEMPFERT IS BORN.

His mother has a song request.  Red Roses for a Sore Pelvis.

1923:  THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY IS FOUNDED BY WALT DISNEY.

Gee, I wonder if they ever turned a profit.

1925:  ACTRESS ANGELA LANSBURY IS BORN.

Birthday, She Wrote.

1928:  ACTRESS ANN MORGAN GUILBERT IS BORN.

Millie Halper, next door neighbor to Rob and Laura Petrie.

1939:  THE FIRST ATTACK ON BRITISH TERRITORY BY THE GERMAN LUFTWAFFE.

I guess the Nazis weren't big on scones and clotted cream.

1941:  BASEBALL STARS/SPORTSCASTER TIM MCCARVER IS BORN.

Many people don't like him.  I, however, think he was great.  Terrific career, Timmy.

1944:  WALLY WALRUS, WOODY WOODPECKER'S FOIL, DEBUTS IN A WALTER LANTZ CARTOON.

Chilly Willy can't be far behind.

1946:  ACTRESS SUZANNE SOMERS IS BORN.

If you want to laugh a lot, watch her next show on the Home Shopping Network.

1962:  THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS BEGINS WHEN PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY IS SHOWN PHOTOGRAPHS OF MISSILE SITES IN CUBA.

"What?  You only have black and white??"

1964:  CHINA DETONATES ITS FIRST NUCLEAR WEAPON.

And we were worried about Russia?

1964:  SOVIET LEADERS LEONID BREZHNEV AND ALEXEI KOSYGIN ARE INAUGURATED IN RUSSIA.

Bye, bye, Nikita.

1968:  US ATHLETES TOMMIE SMITH AND JOHN CARLOS ARE KICKED THE US OLYMPIC TEAM FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE BLACK POWER SALUTE.

Right on, brother!

1969:  THE NEW YORK METS WIN THE WORLD SERIES.

And a young boy in Mount Vernon, New York has his first moment of glory in life.

1972:  ACTOR LEO G. CARROLL DIES.

"George!  Marian!"

1973:  HENRY KISSINGER AND LE DUC THO ARE AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.

Is this before or after Kissinger was shtupping Jill St. John?

1973:   DRUMMER GENE KRUPA DIES.

Bang this.

1978:  KAROL WOJTYLA IS ELECTED POPE PAUL II.

A big day for Poland because...

1978:  WANDA RUTKIEWICZ IS THE FIRST POLE AND EUROPEAN WOMAN TO REACH THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST.

Kielbasie for everybody!

1978:  ACTOR DAN DAILEY DIES.

Mother Wore Tights.  Dad Wore Shrouds.

1984:  DESMOND TUTU IS AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.

He did not sleep with Jill St. John.  As far as I know.

1989:  ACTOR CORNEL WILDE DIES.

The Greatest Wake on Earth.

1995:  THE MILLION MAN MARCH OCCURS IN WASHINGTON, DC.

Any excuse to take a day off.

1997:  ACTRESS AUDRA LINDLEY DIES.

Mrs. Roper!!

1997:  AUTHOR JAMES MICHENER DIES.

Did he ever write a book shorter than 1000 pages?

1999:  RADIO HOST JEAN SHEPHERD DIES.

This is worse than poking your eye out.

2004:  FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY PIERRE SALINGER DIES.

He had no comment.

2006:  A MAGNITUDE 6.7 EARTHQUAKE ROCKS HAWAII.

Hawaii 6.7.

2007:  ACTRESS DEBORAH KERR DIES.

From Here to Real Eternity.

2010:  ACTRESS BARBARA BILLINGSLEY DIES.

"Gee, Ward, I'm worried about June."

2012:  BASEBALL PLAYER/COACH EDDIE YOST DIES.

On this very date in 1969, he was coaching third base for the World Series winning New York Mets.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Out of Control

 ...is my life at the moment.  I moved five minutes away but landed in a world of snafus and perfectly cluttered storms.  And sadly I am going it solo.  For now, blog entries will be short.

Like this one.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Color Purple

 

Not the movie, gang.  But you will see what this means as long as you read on.

Back after Robin Williams passed on at his own hand, I wrote a piece about just how fragile our minds can be.   And just how quickly things can go off the rails for even the more rational person.  The mind can be our best friend and our worst enemy.

In that blog entry, I mentioned my mother's own mental conflicts.  It started very simply.  In one of her first weeks of retirement, she tried to hang some drapes.   She fell and her sofa was the safety net.  She didn't break anything but there was enough physical trauma that her slowly-simmering arthritis started to boil over.  Within weeks, every bone in her body was sore every morning. And she didn't handle it well.

The body aches ramped up her thought process.  Already grappling with a forced retirement, boredom made the arthritis worse.   She started to become depressed and, at the same time, anxious every night as she anticipated the morning stiffness to come.   Calling her on the phone every day was a crapshoot.  I never knew what kind of mindset she would be in.

Ultimately, she sought the help and counsel of her family doctor.  And he immediately hit the prescription pad.

Pain killer.

Anti-depressant.

Anti-anxiety.

A chemical cocktail that sent her spinning.  And it wasn't long after that one of my daily phone calls to her sent me spinning.

"I think I want to kill myself."

My mother could have her goofy moments.  But the tone of her voice told me she was dead serious.  I also had a sense that, if she mentioned this out loud, the odds of her actually doing this was were low.   Nevertheless, I hit the Yellow Pages and looked to see what was available from Westchester County in the way of mental health assistance.

Surprisingly, there were several agencies that anybody can reach out.   My guess is that budget cuts have happened since and none of them exist now.   But I was lucky twenty-five years ago.

In her anguish, my mother had taken to not getting out of bed.   I finally did my own little intervention and paid a visit.  I told her that I had called a county agency and they would assign a psychiatrist to her case.

"I'm not nuts."

You're also not bedridden, either.  I pledged to disconnect her cable TV if she didn't at least see the guy once.

We negotiated a bit.  Essentially I got her to agree for the price of five Lotto tickets a week.  That was another weakness she had.   Lottery scratchers.   But I was willing to overlook that addiction for now.

As I have written most recently, my mom was not a person who shared her life's history.  Ever.  She had a sister and both had been orphaned in their early teens.  Their parents, my maternal grandparents, apparently died at the same time.  Likely from one of those killer influenza outbreaks.  I knew their names, but never saw a picture or heard any stories.  The motto in my house was like the military.

Don't ask.  Don't tell.

So, the thought that my mother was going to open up to some stranger seemed to be a dicey prospect.  And a huge waste of money if she simply went in there to discuss the weather or last night's edition of Jeopardy.

My mom's shrink was Dr. Frenkel and his big claim to fame were some studies he had developed with regard to lights and colors.  His whole business model was constructed around the notion that everybody had a key positive color and a key negative color.  The pro-color would trigger good sensations.  The con-color would spike your pain.  Naturally, you wanted to be awash in your good color and the way you do that is with tinted glasses.  Dr. Frenkel obviously had cut a side deal with Lenscrafters.

After his testing, Dr. Frenkel declared that my mother's positive color was purple. 

So now you understand today's title.

Of course, he had the direct connection to a pair of purple shades for $119.50, thank you very much.  Even more importantly, he also concluded that there was a two-way tie for her bad colors.  The ones that gave her intense pain.

Green and brown.

Holy shit. 

The furniture in her apartment?  Brown.

The wall-to-wall carpeting in her apartment?  Green.

If Dr. Frenkel was correct, my mother was spending her days in several shades of Hell.

Of course, Mom needed more than just a new pair of sunglasses.  Dr. Frenkel wanted to get to the bottom of her pain triggering colors.  And that would be done via a one-hour appointment every Saturday afternoon.

A new routine began.  I'd pick her up and drive up to the doctor's Scarsdale house.  After dropping her off, I would venture to a White Plains mall for a time-killing lunch and then go pick her up when she was done.  One Saturday, Dr. Frenkel was off his schedule and, when I came by to retrieve Mom, she was still inside his office. 

I sat patiently and quietly in the waiting room which was certainly not insulated for sound.  I could hear every word of Dr. Frenkel's session with my mother.  I thought quickly about covering my ears.  Maybe I'd hear something I didn't want to know.  But, my attention was piqued.

Dr. Frenkel had closed in on why Mom hated the color brown.

She was talking about a brown teddy bear.  She loved it so.  And, when she was five years old,  it was taken away from her by...

I walked quickly outside.  I didn't want to know.  Her pain and anguish needed to be private.

And I never did find out.  I decided that splurging on Lotto tickets was probably the least of what my mother had dealt with in her life.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Classic Newsreel of the Month - October 2024

 The Holocaust finally is revealed.

Dinner last night:  Japanese hot dog at the game.

The Housing Market

 

Dinner last night:   Sandwich.

Hollywood Then and Now - October 2024

The backlot that is the streets of Los Angeles.   Always amazing.   Take a look at this infamous house from the classic movie "Double Indemnity."  It looks the same today as it did back in the 40s.  Film history at every turn.

Dinner last night:  Moving day.  Nothing.