Al Fekety was 24th in line for the ticket booths outside Citi Field on Sunday afternoon, more than five hours before Matt Harvey tossed the first pitch of Game 5 of the World Series, practically in defiance of the canned recording that played on a loop from the public address system above: Today’s game is sold out. There are no more tickets available for today’s game.
Some people just won’t take no for an answer.
Tickets for the Mets’ first World Series games in 15 years averaged more than $1,300 on the secondary market, with the cheapest seats for Sunday’s Game 5, by the right field foul pole in the upper deck, fetching $525 apiece online. Yet for those willing to take a chance and with time to burn – a motley array of diehard fans and scalpers looking to flip a quick profit – a precious few walk-up tickets were made available on Sunday for the final game of the season at Citi Field.
Some had waited hours. Others nearer to the front – groups with sleeping bags, backpacks, pillows and camping chairs – had been there for days.
Fekety, a lifelong Staten Island native who works as an engineer for a telecommunications company, was able to score a single seat in section 503 for $150. He estimated they released 50 tickets for Saturday’s Game 4 and only 23 for Friday’s Game 3.
“I got here today at 2pm,” he said. “Came here yesterday at 3.58pm and I was 95th in line and I did not get in. I’ve been going to the World Series every year for the last 26 years. This was the first time ever I didn’t go to back-to-back games.”
Fekety, 53, is a well-traveled sports tourist who said he attends the MLB, NBA and NHL all-star games every year – thanks in no small part to his brother, who is a captain for United Airlines.
“If the Mets win tonight I’m blowing off work tomorrow and Tuesday,” he said. “I’ll be at Newark tomorrow at 6am trying to get out of there.”
Not far behind Fekety was Royals fan Justin Rethmeyer and three friends, all of whom traveled from Kansas City and managed to score the last four tickets from the initial allotment, all for $150 or under.
“Two standing room and two in 507!” enthused Rethmeyer, 30, who works in finance. “We’re the last people to have seats to the World Series! They’re done unless the re-release.”
Rethmeyer said they arrived on Friday and planned on flying home if the Mets tied the series on Saturday night, but decided to stay when the Royals won and earned an opportunity to clinch the team’s second-ever championship and first in three decades on Sunday night.
“That’s the only reason why we’re here today,” he said. “If they didn’t have that opportunity we’d just fade it and fly back to Kansas City. We could have gone to the game Friday, we could have gone to the game yesterday, but because we couldn’t clinch we waited for today.”
The Mets declined to comment on the specifics of how the walk-up allotment for World Series was sourced, but a Citi Field security official assigned to the ticket line for the team’s three home games said that tickets became available in real time as cancellations were called into the box office, whether due to a missed flight or an unexpected event. The team, after issuing a refund, will put the ticket back into the system. That explained the stop-start pace of the queue, which slowed to a standstill as the 8.15pm start time drew near.
Perhaps the most intrepid of Sunday’s queuers were the foursome at the front, who said they’d been there since 6.30pm on Thursday. They’d nabbed tickets for Game 3, attended the game, then hurried back to the ticket windows after the final out to stay overnight and do it all over again for Game 4. By the time they scored tickets for Sunday’s Game 5, they estimated they spent 60 hours waiting.
“Section 503, row three: $300 for the two,” said Scott, who declined to give his last name.
At 8.11pm – four minutes before first pitch – the curtains over windows nine and 10 were pulled down and the line, which had quadrupled in length in the two hours since the initial allotment ran out, broke form. One of scalpers who had scored tickets earlier quickly descended into the dispersing crowd to make a sale.
Yet it was Fakety who spoke for all of those with the foresight to get there early.
“Bottom line,” he said, “is I’m happy to be in.”
