The Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers are battling it out to decide who will be the Stanley Cup Champion. Although the series looks like it may be over before game six, one fan has listed his pair of tickets on fan-to-fan ticket site Stubhub.com. With such an important game, tickets must be expensive, so how much did he list them for? $72,453? Don’t be ridiculous, that is the second most expensive ticket. For his lower level corner seat, this fan wants [read in Dr. Evil voice] $1 million.
I understand you can post your tickets for whatever you want and there is no way anyone will buy these tickets considering there are other tickets in this same section for just $1800, but it brings up an interesting hypothetical. What game would you pay $1 million to go see. My answer is no game, I would use the money to pay off student loans, but where’s the fun in that. So, lets count down the games in history or hypothetical games of the future that you would pay a million bucks for.
Since the million dollar ticket is for game six lets get it started with a game six.
5. Game Six of the 2003 NLCS
This one wouldn’t just be any ticket, you would have Steve Bartman’s seat. So there you sit, left field line, field level right up against the minuscule foul territory that is patrolled by Moises Alou. As the game goes on, you think you may be watching one of the best playoff pitching performances in the history of the Cubs.
Prior rolls through seven shutout innings, the Cubs lead by three and it looks like they are headed to the World Series. Juan Pierre hits a one-out double, then it happens. In the eighth pitch of a Luis Castillo at-bat he hits a fly ball in your direction. Here it comes. You’ve never caught a ball before. No, don’t lean over the ledge, you might interfere with the play. Wait, is it into the stands? Catch it. Catch it!
What do you do? Do you let it fall into Alou’s glove for the second out of the eighth? Do you catch it? I would pay $1 million just to take that ridiculous excuse for chocking away from the Cubs.
4. Game One of the 1988 World Series
The first game of what may have been the most mismatched World Series. The powerhouse A’s Featuring Dave Stewart, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and Dennis Eckersley. The Dodgers were without their MVP left fielder, or so they thought.
Kirk Gibson was thought to be out for the series, but he put in his only at-bat of the series in this one. And it may have been the most dramatic at-bat in the history of the sport.
This game comes with a bonus as well. You can sit anywhere you want in Dodger Stadium, but you also get your choice of commentators from this unbelievable game.
Will you take Don Drysdale‘s poetic call of the preface and action?
Will you take the always eloquent call of Vin Scully on NBC?
Or will you “not believe what you just saw” with Jack Buck on CBS radio?
You can’t go wrong with any of them.
3. Game Three of the 1932 World Series
The Wrigley Field ticket vendors are really making money with this list. With this ticket you sit in the center field bleachers watching one of the greatest teams in baseball history take on one of the best Cubs teams ever.
You soak in the afternoon sunshine as the fifth inning rolls in. With the game tied at four, Babe Ruth strolls into the box. After some jawing with the Cubs bench the Sultan of Swat points straight at you. On the very next pitch, the Great Bambino crushes one straight at you. Is the story true? Who knows, but watching the Babe swat his final career World Series home run might be worth the price of admission. And did you know that Lou Gehrig hit a home run the very next at-bat?
2. April 15, 1947 – Jackie Robinson‘s first game
It’s not often that history of sports and history of the country overlap, but this is one of those times. For the first time, an African American man played in a Major League Baseball game. This broke the color barrier in America’s most popular professional sport.
Not much else to say about this one.
1. Game Seven of the next Cubs World Series at Wrigley
Maybe it’s because inflation may make a $1 million price tag somewhat reasonable or maybe it’s because it may never happen, but this is the game that I would kill to see.
Just imagine the agony of every pitch, the drama of every hit and the pressure of every moment. The longer it takes for the Cubs to return to the mountain top the higher the pressure will rise on the members of the team that finally makes it. This ticket would be worth the money even if you couldn’t see the field.
That’s my list, but there are millions of combinations that you could pick. So what game would you pay $1 million for?