The four of us gathered about 5PM at Magoo’s house a few nights ago. It was finally THE NIGHT. The spreadsheet went to all of us about two weeks before, and individually, we had mulled our choices. Now, it was time – we were completing the first distribution of our 2019 Nats season ticket package.

Bill is the actual owner. The tickets are for four great seats on the club level, in section 219, directly in line with 1st base. They are on the aisle, underneath an overhang (which is handy in case of rain) and have full access to club level amenities. I love these seats.

Bill has a long list of people who buy some of the tickets. About 5 years ago he was looking for a few folk to help with the upfront costs, so Magoo, Willie and I became “partners”. The tickets are still in Bill’s name, and he is the sole owner, but as partners, we get first crack at the games. Each of us also “rep” some other folk who are heavy buyers.

If you have ever seen the Farrelly brothers’ 2005 baseball movie, “Fever Pitch”, (Note: some claim this is a “chick flick” disguised as a baseball movie, but I disagree) with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, you might have a sense of a draft night. Early in the movie, Jimmy Fallon gets together with his buddies to divide up his newly arrived Red Sox season tickets package. They smell and feel the new tickets. They have a white board on which they are tracking the tickets. They argue, they trade dates, they talk about which games are must haves. The meeting goes on for a long time.

We are now 14 years after that movie, and all of our partners are a bit older than Fallon and crew, so things are a bit different. There are no more physical tickets delivered – it’s all electronic, so we do everything online in excel. There’s no shouting or fighting – I think with us being older, we’ve all calmed down a bit. We have a few “rules” – the four of us go to opening day, and the final game of the season together. Willie always gets the 4th of July tickets, because it’s his anniversary and both he, and his wife, are diehard baseball fans. When my young niece was traveling here on a yearly basis from San Francisco, I always got the day Giant game, so she wouldn’t be up to late. And, everyone is honest about whether the tickets are for themselves, or for someone they are repping. Tickets for partners almost ALWAYS take precedent.

On this year’s draft night, everyone grabbed something to drink, and we started. We work through the season, a series at a time. Philly is the second series of the year, normally, a tough sell. With Harper’s return for the first time, the games go quickly. There’s the occasional snarky comment about a team or series (Will the fish be the worst team in baseball this year? How many Marlin tickets will we have to try and trade in, when all is said and done?). There are the teams that are always big draws, like the Cubs, Cards, Dodgers and Giants, but this year, a few games sneak through and aren’t taken. Also this year, both the Indians and White Sox are coming to DC, and those tickets disappear pretty quickly. No one can remember the last time the Sox were here in DC (side note to Morgan – I scored two of those Sox tickets!).

After about an hour and twenty minutes, we make it through all of the games in the season, and take a break. Magoo pulls some dinner out of the oven, we all pour another round and have a great meal. Over dinner, there’s some discussion about the Nats, and on baseball in general. In the division, everyone agrees that Atlanta will be tough, and Philly will probably be a contender. The consensus is the Mets aren’t there yet but could be a sleeper. And the Fish? They will occupy their usual place in the cellar. Eventually, we finish the meal, clear the table and pull the spreadsheet back out. We go through it one more time, find a few errors that we correct, and also compile a list of games that people want additional tickets for. The Dodgers are particularly popular this year.

A little over three hours after starting, the evening is over. 213 out of a possible 324 tickets are gone, with 111 remaining. Handshakes all around, and we go our separate ways. We’ll all review the spreadsheet privately one more time, and ensure it’s correct for all of the tickets we repped. In a few days, the remaining games will go out to the rest of the folk on Bill’s list and they will pick the tickets they are interested in as well. With luck, over 80% of all the tickets will be gone before the start of the season. Over the summer, people will buy the remaining available tickets, or we will try and trade them for other games.

Opening day is about three weeks away on Thursday, March 28th. Game time is 1:05PM. If I don’t see them before, I know I’ll see these guys at our usual beer stand about 1130AM on the 28th. Hope springs eternal in baseball, and I have the feeling it’s gonna be a great year….