Baseball On A Budget

As everyone knows, going to a professional baseball game has become an extremely expensive proposition.  Between the rapidly escalating price of tickets, parking and concessions, visiting even the cheapest MLB stadiums can easily cost well over one hundred dollars for a pair.  But if you're smart about your decisions, it's still possible to do baseball on a budget.  To prove it, I'm about to let you in on how my brother and I sat in the front row of a Saturday night Athletics game in Oakland against the Cleveland Indians - complete with a 1972 World Series Championship 40th anniversary celebration - for a net cost of $44.

We had this up close view of the visitor's bullpen for a net cost of $44.

A's tickets aren't generally very expensive - the team struggles to draw fans, places tarps over the entire upper deck of it's massive multi-purpose stadium, and rarely wins games.  Lower level seats down the lines cost just $40 each before fees and shipping, but we purchased a pair of tickets in Section 108, Row 1 on eBay for $80 including shipping (after checking all my favorite secondary ticketing sites including StubHub, ScoreBig and TicketCity).  To me, professional baseball is professional baseball, and (all else being equal) I'd rather have great seats to watch a crappy team (like the A's) than catch a contender (like the Giants) from the upper deck.  While normally public transportation is a good way to save some money, the only real way to get to Oakland from the South Bay is to drive, so we were forced to pay $17 to park plus another $10 or so for gas and tolls.  So far, we're at a total cost of $107.

Next, it's easy to save money by bringing food from home.  At some stadiums, eating the local fare is a key part of the experience - in Oakland, it's not.  Rather than spend $8 for a mediocre hot dog, we spent about $10 total on snacks in advance which we brought with us to the park.  We did buy a couple of sodas from the concession stands because it was so unexpectedly warm outside (around 85 degrees when we got to the park) which added another $10 to the tab.  All in, our total bill came to $127 - so how, you ask, did we get down to $44?

Years ago, my brother found out about the incredible market power of baseball bobblehead dolls.  At first blush, you might think that going to a bobblehead giveaway game would add to total cost (driving up demand), and on some level that might be true.  But rarely does the pricing premium associated with a bobblehead promotion match the shockingly high price that these things sell for on eBay.  Saturday's A's game featured a Rollie Fingers 1972 retro bobblehead (see right) for the first 10,000 fans - we came early to get two.  We immediately posted them on eBay for a one-day auction, and 24 hours later they sold for a total of $83, plus shipping.  Assuming you don't have any real need for, or attachment to, a bobblehead doll, you can sell these things easily and recoup a large percentage of your cost.

The A's honored the 40th anniversary of the 1972 World Championship team.

Overall, a great night from some great seats ran us a net expense of $44.  Looking ahead to next month, I'm trying to plan a Memorial Day visit to Seattle that will hopefully include my first visit to catch the Mariners.  While a trip to Safeco Field might be somewhat pricey, bringing food from the outside and finding cheap tickets on the secondary market will help defray the cost.  And, as luck will have it, the Friday night before Memorial Day is Dustin Ackley bobblehead night.  Get ready, eBay.