The Mets Are Shamelessly Selling Commemorative Tickets To Johan Santana's No-Hitter For $50 Each

You see those tickets up there? They're from old Shea Stadium in 1969, the Amazin' Mets. Five bucks bought you a loge seat for the NLCS, and ten bucks bought you one for the World Series. That's a good price. The loge had a nice view. I would have enjoyed seeing the Miracle Mets' miracles from there.

Almost 43 years later, last Friday night, Johan Santana performed another Mets miracle, this time at Citi Field, Shea's successor. I paid $25 plus fees to sit in the promenade infield section—at Shea, it was less obliquely named the "upper level." We got the crisp tickets at will call, and now, a week later, the unintentionally crumpled thing is under a number of heavy books in my bedroom, gravity smoothing it into a suitable artifact.

I bring this up because the Mets announced today that they're selling commemorative tickets to Santana's no-hitter. Season-ticket-holders get their seats for free, plan holders get them for a discount, and the unwashed public can buy the rest, 41,922 in all, for $50 a pop.

But there weren't 41,922 people at the game. There were 20,000 of us, at most. And approximately a third of us were wearing red to support the gang from out of town. Hell, our car back on the 7 Express was filled with Cardinals fans who chanted "'06! '06!", and they cheerfully resolved to go to Foley's while we slinked off into the night.

Yet the moment was perfect still, the game we had waited 51 years for. It doesn't need a crass whitewashing. It happened, finally. Some of us were there. Others weren't. But no one wants to change a thing.

[ Mets.com]