Debbie had informed me this afternoon that barring anything really unforseen that the trip to PNC was a go. I got really excited and then went through my pre baseball game checklist. I started printing out rosters and then refining them to the current players. Baseball mitts, rope, sharpies and rubber bands in case there was batting practice - check.

The next thing I needed were hats for both teams so it would be easier to beg for balls. I headed to Lids after work and luckily they had both teams. I had to splurge for the 100% wool New Era authentic ones but I love those anyway. With the Lids club card discount it came out to $48.00. The guy behind the counter again tried to get me to buy some of that stupid hat protector spray. This time I got smart and told him that I bought a whole bunch last week. That shut him up.

The last piece of business was to buy tickets. Due to their horrible record, the Pirates average attendance these days hovered around 10,000. Since it was going to be a 12:35pm day game, that meant thhere would be no kids and the only people attending would be retirees and deadbeats. I thought about just getting some walk-up tickets at the windows because we would then avoid the stupid “service charges” (see kids, Eddie Vedder was right!) Then I noticed that pirates.com has a ticket marketplace where season ticketholders can resell their tickets at face value. I checked and indeed there were 5 sets for sale for Thursday’s game. Not only were they all behind the dugouts but they were also only $32.00 each. I bought two that were 7 rows behind the Astros dugout and one section away from home plate. Never in my life will I get such great seats for a major league game for such a low price. Those same seats at Yankee Stadium are so expensive and so hard to get that they don’t even tell you how much they are on their website. And I expected PNC Park to be a million times better than Yankee Stadium.