Dateline Detroit: Impish Pizza baron Mike Ilitch emerged from his cave today after years of self imposed seclusion during the summer months over the embarrassment and shame he felt in overseeing the disintegration of one of baseball's proudest franchises into a laughingstock during his 14 year reign as the franchises principal owner. With his team relevant for the first time since Whitney Houston's infectious smash hit "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" provided a perfect soundtrack for a magical Tigers team that featured Tiger icons Alan Trammell, Jack Morris and Dave Bergman some 19 seasons ago, Mr. Ilitch scheduled a press conference for Wednesday afternoon to be held at Comerica Park.
From a conference room inside Comerica, with the shades drawn to prevent Mr. Ilitch from bursting into flames from exposure to sunlight. The cloistered elderly Tigers owner entered the room to the sounds of complete silence. The temperature in the conference room dropped several degrees and became overwhelmed with the pungent scent of grease and pepperoni as Mr. Caesar himself strode toward the podium, cleared his throat for over 12 minutes before speaking in a voice barely above a breathless whisper."As you may know The Tigers have been slightly below average over the past two decades." Mr. Ilitch said. "However the fans in Detroit are some of the best fans in the world, as exemplified by their blind devotion to the Detroit Lions, owned by my close friend and fellow vampire/Republican/industry magnate Bill Ford and I would like to reward them for their undeserved support."
Mr. Ilitch paused and motioned for a young, gangly, yet strikingly handsome man named Andrew to join him onstage.
"This is Andrew, a college student with an irregular heartbeat caused by my pizzas, thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and barely
enough money to dress respectably, as shown by him wearing a t-shirt today that illustrates a shark eating a kitten..........(mmm, I havent eaten a kitten in awhile), who filled my coffers attending games during a 119 loss season, purchased $8 beers in an attempt to get drunk enough to enjoy a day at the park with my often inept Detroit Nines playing a game of Rounders, and spent $25 on T-shirt jersey's of "stars" like Matt Anderson, Damion Easley, and Rondell White. For him and all the fans like him, I want to reward them by not increasing the price of Tigers tickets if they reach the post-season." Ilitch stated.The crowd was stunned as Mr. Ilitch showed generosity for the first time since his revolutionary announcement of a $5 Hot & Ready pizza. Andrew stood dumbfounded searching for something to say.
"And," Mr. Ilitch continued, "I'm going to present the first two tickets to my young, handsome, (did I mention I.....he's handsome) friend here."
The owner dug into his pocket and instead of producing tickets brandished a fork. "Ahhhhhh!!!!"
a shrill, feminine cry was heard and Andrew fell to the ground with the fork protruding from his eye. With the quickness of a cat Mr. Ilitch lept over Andrew's body and procured his wallet, emptying its contents into his own pockets. BOOM!! The room was rocked as a strategically timed smoke bomb exploded, disorienting the crowd, as Ilitch was whisked away to his lair by devoted underling Randy Smith. Banners then unfolded from the ceiling revealing a pricing plan that had increased playoff ticket prices fivefold as mandated by the Supreme Overlord of baseball himself Bud Selig, before stormtroopers orderly marched in and dispersed the crowd.O.K. I'm not going to pretend to know where that came from although I might have been influenced by Ken Burns documentary on Baseball, part of which I watched this evening, and none of these events happened.........obviously other than the announcement of the ticket increases, which I learned about in the Detroit News via Deadspin. The increase is just another example of Major League Baseball's need to suck the fun and goodwill out of their sport and attempt to further alienate an already disenchanted fan base. God I hate MLB.
2 comments:
Hey, enjoy it while it lasts. I was happy when the White Sox won the WS last year, but now the team is raking season ticket holders across the coals. Check this out.
First, the "guaranteed" seats for the playoffs are not guaranteed for your actual seats, just seats somewhere in the park.
Second, ALL SEATS must be purchased for the playoffs by Aug 31st (and, given the way they're playing, there won't be anything CLOSE to sure that they'll actually make the playoffs), or you don't get any seats at all.
Third, if you ask for a refund for any unused tickets (like, if they don't make the playoffs, or if they get bounced), you LOSE YOUR SEASON TICKETS for next year.
Whee. Wait until you guys do well, then they'll REALLY stick it to you.
They are really sticking it to us on this one. I remember that when we started the season 5-0, I joked, "I'm going to the World Series." As the season progressed, and we could see the playoff light at the end of the tunnel, I actually thought I'd go to a World Series game should the Tigers make it that far.
I guess that now I'm not going...
This really pisses me off! We had to put up with this bologna for every year since 1993, and now we're rewarded with $40 skyline tickets (usually a $5 value) -- for the first round!
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