All-Star Tickets Creating a Frenzy for Buyers, Sellers : Baseball: From the Bob Uecker seats to the field level, tickets draw heavy fan interest. Some, though, will settle for watching the game on TV.

By KIM Q. BERKSHIRE

July 12, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN DIEGO — Over the course of the last six days, Rick has been dragged out of bed, hung up on, yelled at, lied to and bargained with.

“I wouldn’t do it again; this has been nothing but a major headache,” he said, reflecting on the circus act his life has recently become.

Rick, who preferred not to use his last name for this story, could have been describing symptoms that lead to family counseling or group therapy.

But this was uglier. Rick became a part of nightmare that is All-Star ticket hell.

Buying, selling, swapping. It started weeks ago but has reached a fever pitch the last few days. If the thousands of All-Star ticket-related phone calls throughout Southern California were on a conference call, it would be like eavesdropping on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

“Buy low, sell high,” is the silent battle cry.

Come Tuesday, the majority of San Diegans, although the game is in their back yard, will view the All-Star game from the comfort of a living room or a corner bar.

Dave Gilmore, the Padres’ director of ticket operations, said all 59,000 tickets will have been sold by game time. Some unclaimed and returned tickets were scheduled to go on sale to the general public at 7 a.m. today at ticket window H.

A chosen few, approximately 5,000, won the right to buy the $50 and $60 tickets from the Padres in a postcard lottery that 70,000 entered. Another 17,000 Padres season ticket-holders bought approximately 23,000 tickets.

Gilmore wouldn’t give the breakdown of how many tickets were complimentary, or how many went to players, the media or Major League Baseball. But earlier he said that more than half of the 59,000 tickets went to baseball, corporations and other “entities.”

Since it’s baseball’s game, the Padres have no control over how many tickets stay in baseball and how many go elsewhere.

“I can’t comment on the number, it will fluctuate over the next few weeks,” said Gilmore, who guessed that more local fans will be represented when the attendance numbers are tallied. “We probably won’t know for two weeks where they all went.”

Gilmore estimated that at least 80% of the tickets available would go to local fans in some form, and that’s a number he finds pride in.

“You compare that to the 10% that go to the local team hosting an event like the Super Bowl,” he said. “We feel pretty good that all our season ticket-holders had an opportunity to buy tickets.”

Not that they were all overjoyed to have that opportunity. Some season ticket-holders felt the Padres gave them the shaft by not offering them their regular tickets.

One holder of mini-season tickets, who wished to remain anonymous, has had front-row, field-level seats for 14 years. He was incensed that he couldn’t get his regular seats, but was offered others, one row back.

“I sat in that seat for the 1978 All-Star game and during the playoffs in 1984,” he said. “I feel like I’m not getting my true seat. I’d enjoy the game, but I feel like they’re saving the good tickets for the important people.”

He’s trying to get $450 apiece for his seats, located close to third base. If he doesn’t sell them, he’ll opt to see the game.

Bob Angus, another mini-season ticket holder, passed on his chance to buy tickets.

“The poor fans get nothing. It’s no longer a game for the fans, it’s for the fat-cat corporations,” Angus said. “I told them I didn’t want my tickets. I probably could have sold them for a lot of money, but it was the point. I wasn’t going to do it.”

Gilmore said the system of ticket distribution was based on longevity and was as fair to season ticket-holders as it could be: “Whenever you have an event of this magnitude, there will always be questions from the public.”

Yet private parties that are selling or trying to sell tickets couldn’t give a hoot about the game. Their interest is the money.

Take Rick, for example. He offered to help out a friend in a financial fix. Rick had a good idea what his friend’s seats--located in the second row on the field level and between the bases--were worth, and the prices that ticket agents quoted her weren’t even in the ballpark.

“I found out how much they were offering her and I said, ‘Forget it, no way, I’ll take care of this for you,’ ” he said.

Since Monday, when the advertisement first appeared in the newspaper, Rick has averaged 15-20 calls a day. They begin as early as 7 a.m. and don’t stop until long after he’s finished studying and gone to bed.

“I asked one guy what did he think he was doing, calling me so late,” he said.

Although his faith in mankind hasn’t been completely dashed, Rick said he was surprised at the lengths some people went to try to wrangle the tickets out of him.

“You wouldn’t believe the stories I’ve heard,” said Rick, who has been offered everything from cash to payment plans to trading for Garth Brooks tickets. “I had a guy tell me he wanted to take his son to the game, then I’d hear his roommate in the background asking if he got the tickets. Another guy said the only way he could patch things up with his girlfriend was to take her to the game.”

But the story that really grated on Rick was the fellow who professed he had cancer and this would be the last All-Star game he’d ever have a chance to see.

“I had a close friend die of cancer recently,” Rick said. “I started asking the guy what kind of treatment he was getting and where he was getting treatment. He couldn’t answer any of those questions.”

Rick figured his friend’s tickets were two of the choicest in the stadium.

“I hear there are a lot more sellers than buyers out there,” said Rick, who hopes to get $1,000 for his pair but will settle for less. “It’s crazy. People are getting greedy. I’m just looking out for someone’s best interest. Prices could drop or skyrocket. This weekend will dictate what will happen. It’s a waiting game.”

Some aren’t waiting. The closer it’s time to play ball, the antsier some sellers become.

“The panic is setting in,” John Robinson of Bucks Tickets in San Diego said Friday afternoon. “You can feel it. People have been asking outrageous prices for their tickets. They saw a gold mine, but now they’re starting to realize that they’re not going to get $6 million for their tickets.”

During the 15-minute interview Robinson was interrupted half a dozen times by interested sellers.

“Where?” Robinson tells a prospective seller. He doesn’t attempt to stifle a laugh. “Even Bob Uecker’s in front of you. I’ll give you $75 a piece.”

Moments later Robinson’s on another line: “What are you looking to get? Better go get it. I can’t even come close to that.”

What people don’t understand, Robinson said, is ticket agencies operate on a simple Economics 101 theory of supply and demand. Anyone who thinks he can sell his unwanted tickets to a broker as a last option is dead wrong.

“We take orders ahead of time, as early as December or January,” Robinson said. “As tickets come in, we fill the orders. Once we’ve filled our orders, we close up and go home. People think they can call us the day before the game and get top dollar, but forget it.”

Entire families can probably forget about going to the game unless their coffers are full. Robinson said he is still selling cheap seats for $100 to $125. So while there may be a smattering of children on hand for the game, Robinson predicted it would be a white-collar crowd.

“The Super Bowl is corporate America’s winter vacation and the All-Star game is corporate America’s summer vacation,” he said.

If you already know you’re going to be shut out of that vacation, but want to experience the game in a group setting, probably the best viewing option is the All-Star FanFest.

According to a FanFest spokesman, there are 80 video screens set up in the Convention Center, all of which will be tuned to the game at 5 p.m. on KFMB--game time is 5:35.

“This is a very unique situation,” the spokesman said. “To be here will be just as much fun or more so than at the game. If you wanted to watch the game and can’t go, this is the second-best place.”

But if you are one of the 59,000 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, Padre officials are encouraging game goers to get there early and take public transportation if possible.

Bill Wilson, director of stadium operations, said parking lot gates open at 7 a.m. and the stadium gates at 3 p.m. Tailgate parties are allowed, but only in the lot where your car’s parked. No spreading out this time.

To discourage scalpers, parking lot attendants may check for tickets before they let cars into the lot. Wilson has instructed his staff to just say no to looky-loos.

Wilson said the arrival of the Presidents of the United States and Mexico won’t affect the flow of traffic into the stadium: “They’ll take a circuitous route. No one will ever know when they’re coming in.”

As for your All-Star weather, Wilbur Shigehara, chief forecaster for the National Weather Service in San Diego, said it should be a pleasant day with less humidity then San Diego has had lately. Game-time temperature should be 72 degrees under clear skies, with temperatures dropping to the high 60s as the sun sets.

Shigehara also forecast long shadows across the field during the first four or five innings, all the more reason to get there early for an unobstructed view of batting practice.

“It should be a pretty typical Southern California summer evening,” Shigehara said.

Oh, except for that full moon expected over San Diego skies Tuesday night.

If the game gets dull, there will still be something to howl about.