Plenty of good seats available. That's a familiar line we all have heard hundreds of times. It also has been noticeably missing from Phillies broadcasts in recent years.
It's different at Citizens Bank Park. The Phils had their 140th straight regular-season sellout last night and there's no end in sight. Virtually all the tickets for the remainder of the regular season are accounted for.
That leaves the impression that it's practically impossible to see a game in person without planning months in advance. Which isn't necessarily the case.
For starters, they hold back 500 standing-room-only tickets that go on sale 4 hours before each game. They generally have what's described as "limited" tickets available for impulse purchasers.
"It's mostly standing-room-only. But the Dodgers games in early June, we have limited tickets available. It might be a hundred, it might be 200. So, yes, it's limited but most of it's standing room," explained John Weber, vice president of sales and ticket operations.
Go to StubHub, though, and as of late yesterday afternoon there were more than 2,400 tickets on sale for tonight's game against the Braves. For the three-game series against the Red Sox at the end of June, the website lists more than 4,000 seats for sale for each of the games. That's nearly 10 percent of the listed capacity.
Major League Baseball has a partnership with StubHub, but Weber said all Phillies tickets are sold directly to the public and that these are strictly fan-to-fan transactions.
It also should be pointed out that at almost any game, there are a goodly number of empty seats in the upper decks down both foul lines.
