[Please read so this doesn't happen to you!]

Everything's pretty much fine now. I mean, I'll be going to a lot of games this year. I have the Ten-game plan, I got some games on the April/September sale, I got Monster Seats, I got Opening Day through that lottery, got the Futures at Fenway doubleheader, and I have a bunch of other games just through the ticket office online. Plus a Baltimore trip again this year. So it's not like I'm missing the Red Sox in 2008.

But on the day of the big sale back in February--that's when I went for summertime sets of four. So even if you think I'm silly for complaining when I've got plenty of tickets anyway, all for face value, remember, the ones in question were purchased with the intention of having other couples come to games with my girlfriend and I. So between that and just the principle of the thing, I think my complaint is justified. Here's what happened:

I had planned to buy the maximum eight tickets--two foursomes. My mom would do the same, as she and my dad would be going to one of these games, and for the other four tickets, I'd pay her back. And after we got those, I saw there were still some summer Fridays available, so Kim bought two more, so she and a friend could go to a game. Remember, for all these people, besides Kim and I, this is their only game of the year.

So that's how it went down. Nice and smooth. We were all done by noon, having good luck in the virtual waiting room. We each got our individual confirmations at each of the three distinct email addresses we provided. But the tickets never came, nor did any correspondence from the ticket office. Finally, one day, about a month later, my mom asks me, "Why did I get a refund from the Red Sox?" Shit. I looked at my credit card statement. I had a refund, too. Kim completed the triple-trouble.

I called the ticket office. Sully (I assume) asked me for my order number and all that. He told me that the order was canceled because I exceeded the limit. 18 tickets. I told him there were three separate orders. He told me that all three were in Kim's name, because that was the login name all three orders came in under, so to them, it looks like one person ordering 18 tickets, he tells me. The tickets have already been resold to other fans. (Read: to somebody who most likely sold them at face value illegally through an online ticket scalper PROMOTED by the Red Sox.)

At this point, all I could do was ask, "Okay, couldn't you have sent an email out to let me know that the order(s) are at risk of being canceled, or at the very least, an email saying they'd already been canceled? I mean, if I'd chosen "print-at-home," we all would've shown up at Fenway only to be turned away." The guy says, "Two emails did go out." Huh? He explains that they were sent out, but "you wouldn't have gotten them," because they were both sent to Kim!

Kim checked her mailbox. Nothing. But even if she had gotten them and opened them (which she or anybody still might not have, probably thinking it was just a confirmation or mailing list stuff), why wouldn't the two other people who ordered tickets gotten them?! All three of us got confirmation emails for our order intitially! Then they go and cancel them but only send an alert to one of the three names?? (Which is a lie as far as we know anyway, because, again, Kim checked and found neither of these mystery emails.)

And it's all because we were logged in to mlb.com under the same name. But so what? When it came time to give our info, we each gave it. Different names, different credit cards, different email addresses...and different confirmation letters! I am guessing what happened is after the first login, the computer just kept us logged in, not asking for a name and password each time. (Another fishy thing, though, is how the guy said all the orders came from Kim's login name--it was her computer, but she's never logged in to mlb.com. I even checked later, her computer doesn't keep her logged in, if she ever was at all. I feel like it should've been my name they were all under. The guy sounded snippy when telling me that, almost like he'd been instructed to lie while he had me on hold for so long.)

But still! I never thought for a second, Hey, we better change the login name. Even if had given me a chance to change it, I still might not have, because NOWHERE does it say that the mlb login name has anything to do with anything. On the registration screen, all the info was different for each order. Eight tickets per person. I'd say we strictly followed that order. Again, the big lie is "from our [the ticket office's] end, the three orders looked like they came from the same person." Because each of us got individual confirmation letters. By their logic, two roommates who share a computer could have each gone on line at separate times that day, unbeknownst to the other, and bought, let's say six tickets each. For sick children. Very sick. And the team would just cancel both orders.

After having to inform four excited sets of baseball fans that No, it turns out they won't be going to Fenway this summer, I wrote an old school-style letter to the top name on the ticket office list. The VP of ticketing. Told him what I told you. Asked for the chance to re-purchase. That was well over a moth ago. I, the loyal fifth-year season ticket holding, four dollar slice of crummy Fenway pizza buying lifelong fan, have received no reply.

However, recently, when ordering tickets, I noticed the Sox had a new message up there on the ordering screen. It appears once tickets are already in your cart, and is quite tiny, but you can call it the Jere Rule: "Warning – be sure to use your own login information on the registration page!" Doesn't that tell you they're admitting the system is flawed? Who knows, maybe that message has always been there. But this whole thing just sounds absurd, regardless. Three true fans try to buy tickets for themselves and their friends, none of them exceeding the limit, and all three orders are canceled, all 18 tickets gone. But if you're looking to grab eight at a time for the sole purpose of selling them to real fans, illegally, for ten times face value through an agency, go right ahead. And enjoy the pretty billboard for the agency right there at Fenway Park.

Like I said, though, since then, my mom won the Opening Day lottery, so me, my parents, and girlfriend will be there Tuesday.