Happy Holidays! Now Pony Up.

I'd noticed some time ago (aided by the good people at Loge13) that the Mets had relented to the outcry of their fans (remember them? We do exist...) and made available some smaller, partial season ticket plans for those of us not willing or able to plonk down lots of money for a full season plan. It's the logical move, since these plans seemed to sell fairly well.

However, it appears that the 7-packs that may have been even more popular, and which I've held for the past 3 seasons, have gone the way of the Dodo. I don't know this for sure, however it was around this time last year that I was notified of the 7-pack presale, and I've got no such notification. In fact, nobody from the Mets had contacted me regarding 2009 tickets at all, which I think is a bit of a slight, considering I've only been going to Mets games for 22 seasons, and they know several ways to get a hold of me. Hell, in 2004 and 2005, their ticket folks used to call me once a week to try to talk me into ticket packs and plans. But now, with their shiny new stadium on the horizon, nothing.

Well, maybe not.

Tucked innocuously into the corner of the Mets homepage today, I noticed a little box indicating this: "Mets Pack Holder 2009 Citi Field Plan Pre-Sale: Your presale opportunity begins on Tuesday, January 6 at 10 a.m. ET."

It's an offering of the same assortment of 40-game and 15-game plans that the existing Season Ticket holders were offered. But there's no indication as to what they mean by "pack." Is it for prior 7-pack holders? Is it for any old ticket pack? They don't specify. I haven't gotten an e-mail, and I assume I won't get one for another day or two. That's assuming I'll get one at all.

I've actually liked the fact that I was able to get in early on tickets the past couple of seasons. I take very few indulgences in life, and for me, going to my 15-20 games a season is one such indulgence. While there have been some who aren't happy with these plans (mainly because every plan includes weekday games, whether you want them or not), I think they're pretty good, and actually a lot less than I had feared they might be. As someone who attends weekday games almost exclusively (the 4 Sunday games I attended in 2008 were surely an anomaly; remember that 3 of them were Sunday Night games, 2 of which were moved from Day Games), that 15-game Weekday plan is just perfect for me. And it's surprisingly reasonable, all things considered. My seats in the Mezzanine last season were $230 for 7 games, and I could conceivably get 15 games in the Promenade Infield for $355, when I feared that a 7-pack would run in the $400 neighborhood.

I suppose I'll hem and haw about it, but ultimately I'm pretty sure I'll end up with one of these plans, assuming they don't offer anything else up between now and January 6th. That's assuming they're actually making them available to me as a prior "pack" holder.