Braves Opening Day, I got 12,000 tickets. Who needs tickets?

Tickets for individual Mets games went on sale today, and though I already have my Opening Day seats because of the six-pack that I bought with two other friends, I logged on to get tickets for the April 23 game against the Nationals. A friend from D.C. is coming up for that one, and I knew if I jumped in early, I could get field level seats. Sure enough, we’re sitting in a box down the right-field line.

It took me a few hours to get through because of the high volume on the servers for the Mets website. But after buying my tickets, I checked the promotion for that day (kids t-shirts). Then I also noticed that there was no longer a “T” icon for the home opener on April 11. Sold out. What a convenient way to let fans know there are no more tickets available, rather than the Ticketmaster way of forcing you to go through the process of “searching for tickets” only to find out the event is sold out when “your request could not be completed” message shows up onscreen, even if you put in one ticket for any price range. As for the Mets schedule, the three Yankee games are, naturally, also sold out.

So then I wondered … what about the Braves? The “T” icon for the Reds’ home opener (also the regular Opening Day) was missing, though I already knew that game was sold out last week when tickets went on sale. But the Mets play in Atlanta’s first home game on April 8, and the “T” is still noted on the schedule online. So I clicked on it, went through Ticketmaster’s steps … and was given the opportunity to buy two seats down the left-field line, section 226. Second level. Not even the upper deck. Crazy.

As I’ve said before, the Braves get no support for as good as they are, as good as they have been for 13 years now. Individual game tickets went on sale online on Feb. 1, and through other outlets on Feb. 4. Three weeks of sales, and you can still get second-level seats in Atlanta. I suppose that’s appropriate for a second-class fan base.