If you’re not buying $6 tickets to see your home team play September baseball…then what ARE you doing (and don’t say waiting for Divorce to start on HBO.
Written by Kyle Magin
If you’re in the proximity of good baseball, and especially good affordable baseball, why the hell aren’t you going to it?
Really?
On Monday night, with StubHub tickets available in both locations for $6 apiece, Detroit’s Comerica Park hosted a paid attendance of 28,093; and Houston’s Minute Maid Park hosted a paid attendance of 22,000-plus. Both parks host teams that are in the hunt for the AL’s final wild card spot–the Tigers are 1 game out and the Astros 3.5–and the attendance at both parks, which seat 43ish thousand fans on a good day, was likely lower than the paid report.
That’s embarrassing.
Both cities are in the throes of must-win wild card chases. The Astros have to prove up a model that saw them bottom out the franchise for years to build today’s roster, with Carlos Correa at shortstop, Dallas Keuchel on the mound and recently-defected Cuban legend Yuli Gourriel at first. Without making the playoffs this year, they’re a dysfunctional version of the Chicago Cubs. The Astros will be a ballclub which couldn’t pull off the feat of destroying itself to rise from the ashes through the draft and astute signings. It’s as compelling a narrative as you’ll find outside of Waveland and Addison this year.
In Detroit, the window is closing. Miguel Cabrera, who hit a ball to goddamn Jupiter on Monday, is aging into the danger zone, along with Victor Martinez and Justin Verlander. If the Tigers are going to make a deep playoff run, it’s got to be now, before some long, painful overhaul takes over.
This season is the culmination of a decade of Tigers history that’s seen two World Series appearances (both losses) and breathtaking moments too numerous to count. Why you, Tigers fan living in Detroit, are missing any of this—even vs. the Twins!—is a mystery to me.
Look, I know it’s September.
I know it’s a school night. But doing anything in an American city for $6 is the most frugal way to shelter from the costs of life there, and you’d get to see some good baseball, to boot. Navigate to StubHub right now—you can find $6 tickets in both of the stadiums mentioned here.
