A Quick Story for Today (To Be Followed Later in the Week with More Stories...and Photos)

As mentioned last week, I spent this past weekend in Baltimore, Maryland, catching a couple of baseball games and filling the rest of the hours by walking around the Inner Harbor and Fells Point, eating crab as often as possible, and checking out anything that seemed even remotely cool.

And I had a really nice time. Sure, it's not exactly a trip to Paris, but Baltimore is a great town, and it was interesting to watch my favorite team play a pair of away games.

The New York Yankees were in town for the weekend, and while I had tickets for Saturday night's game, the beautiful weather on Friday (and the fact that my hotel was literally across the street from the stadium) led me to walk up to the ticket booth in an attempt to buy tickets for a game that was to start in a couple of hours.

In New York, doing so would be pretty much a lost cause.

Still, I decided to make the across-the-street journey just to see what might happen. "Hello, sir," the man in the ticket window said. "What can I do for you?"

"Well," I answered, rubbing the back of my neck. "I was kinda hoping there might be some tickets still available for tonight's game." Figuring the next words out of the man's mouth would be, "Ah, sorry, sir. You do know the game starts in, like, an hour?" I was already prepared with a standard, "Eh, that's OK, I was just wondering."

Instead of that dreamed-up conversation, however, the man behind the counter said, "Sure. Where do you want to sit?"

"Uh, well...I guess best available."

"OK, hang on a sec," was the response, and the man in the ticket booth starting typing away.

"Oh," I spoke up again, "I'm sorry--I'll need four seats together, please."

Well, that was it. The straw that broke the camel's back. No way would there be--

"How about 15 rows behind the first base dugout?"

Awkward silence.

"Sir?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, you have four seats--together--behind the dugout? For tonight?"

"Yep, you want 'em?"

"..."

"Sir?"

"Um, well, I'm kinda afraid to ask, but--uh--how much?"

"It'll be 90 a ticket, so--"

"Ugh. That's gonna be--wait, what? $90 bucks? Nine-zero?"

"Yep."

"I'll take four."

"I know, sir. You mentioned that."

As I was walking back towards the hotel with four tickets--behind the first base dugout--to a game that was to start in a couple of hours, all I could think was, if this was Yankee Stadium, I wouldn't have even been able to bribe an usher for $90 bucks.

Um. Not that I'd ever do that, of course...