Going Bananas: The Pregame post

The day has arrived. Four of us will cross over into the Potassium Zone in a little over three hours.

Wait, I thought you said five. 

Therein hangs the peel. Eleanor won't be going, and neither of us is happy about why, but we made the best of it.

The photos in this entry are from last night's Buffalo barnstorming game. No, not the one I had tickets to, but also one that wouldn't happen for three hours after I took them. 

I went down  yesterday afternoon to scope out the situation, particularly to see whether Eleanor would have a prayer of getting to the game right before first pitch.



That was the crowd at 4 p.m. I could see that the area inside the cordoned-off security and ticketing zone was already packed and those people wouldn't have a place to sit or pee for at least another hour until the gates opened.  My other attendees and I can probably cope, but I had serious doubts about whether Eleanor would make it.

I did get close enough to ask. First, I wondered if the other side of the yard had an entrance with no line. It did:



But Abby Banana was there to turn away all but those who had purchased the much more expensive VIP package and were let in early and to guaranteed seats. NO A.D.A. ACCOMODATION FOR YOU!

That directed me back where I came from-




-to the ticket entries for the Great Unwashed. I did get past the security check without a ticket, but couldn't go through the yellow chutes without one for that event. I did find a Bison's employee, not in a big yellow peel, who helped us decide: There IS an ADA entrance, but it's inside the "zone," and even if Eleanor and I got right to it at 11:15 tomorrow when the gates open, she'd still have over a two-hour wait before the game. Just doesn't sound very reasonably accommodatey to me,  but what, you think I'm a lawyer or something?

I hung around a bit longer to see if any Bananamerch was available outside the perimeter- no, but I think some non-Pittsburgh pirates may have had some counterfeit shirts for sale on my walk back- and to breathe in the potassium-laced atmosphere. Lots of kids with lots of parents, many already in Bananagear. And even-



- the opposing barnstorming team, the Washington Generals to the heroic Globetrotters (although the Bananas do lose more often,) sells shirts from its own merch tents.

I then headed home to discuss Teh Plans. Once Eleanor heard of how long it would be, with nowhere to sit (you can't bring a chair unless you want to leave it outside for four hours) and limited if any bathroom options, we agreed that she'd sit this one out. (It's on ESPN, supposedly, if you want to watch at 1.)

That got to the next step: getting rid of it.

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I tried not to break my no-scalp pledge. Around 5, I put a Friends-only post on Facebook and another at my gym's social site, offering it at cost.  No takers. One who saw it would have loved to, but her fiance has a work event and she's also working. At least I got a laugh out of the deal when I asked her about it:




(We decided to donate any "profit" from selling the final ticket to finding something on Brittany and Chance's wedding registry:)

Another mutual friend of mine and my other goers from Rochester would have been a great choice, but she's on a romantic weekend in Canada, presumably with her husband;)  A local friend had been interested, but came down sick this week, and a fellow baseball fanatic is out standing in a Finger Lakes field this weekend listening to Americana music with his wife.  So after all that, I resorted to Schmubhub and, for the first time ever, sold some shit on it.

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They tell you what the latest sale prices are for similar seats. The $300 of a few weeks ago was long gone as a suggested price point, but the range seemed to be $100-$175. I eventually settled on the low end of that, which, once I'm paid face value for the other three, will basically cover my original cost for all five once I get the 90 bucks they pay after taking their cut.  I hit send, and we sat down to finish two episodes of a lovely British comedy set in the 1960s that we really enjoyed and I will review at some point.

Gone in 90 minutes.  Well, mostly gone. When third party vendors are involved, the transfers take longer. I went into a Shea's show a few years ago, purchased on Stubhub the previous day, still  not having my actual seat transferred to Ticketmonster until ten minutes before curtain.  Here, it was the opposite: Matt grabbed the seat quickly, but I first had to transfer it to his email through the Banana ticket site, which I did within half an hour of seeing it. Then he had to confirm the receipt, which he'd done sometime in the wee smalls. I checked PayPal- yes, they have their grubby mitts in this, too- and no 90 bucks (less whatever their vig is) had shown up in my account with them.

Just now? A scary email from the ticket broker site:

You have 1 hour left to send your tickets for this sale! If you do not send the tickets within this time, this sale will be cancelled, and charges will apply.

Charges applied will be either 100% of the price paid by the buyer, or the total cost incurred by StubHub in replacing the tickets for the buyer.

Crikey!, as the star of that British show would say. THAT's why they wanted my credit card number as well. Fortunately, I just had to click a few things to confirm I actually did what I did last night, and it all seems hunky and dory among these bananahemoths.  No PayPal money yet, though, but that's how Elno makes his bank- from hanging on to that money for as long as possible:P

So I leave later this morning, meet up with Posse Scott, and likely return with slight sunburn, a yellow t-shirt that can be seen from space, and probably a ton more pictures from the inside.