U.S. Open Update

On Wednesday, my wife and I watched a U.S. Open tennis match in Arthur Ashe Stadium. You have never seen anything like it, unless you have been lucky enough to see an ant wrestle with a crumb. That’s what it looked like from our cheap seats. Obviously I am exaggerating, because the tennis match involved two players, not one. Two ants wrestling with crumbs is obviously twice as good as one.

We left after a few minutes because my wife got dizzy from the height (really).

You might wonder why I didn’t invest some of my Dilbert money in better tickets. Well, that’s a long story involving my sloth, ignorance, poor memory, wishful thinking, bad timing, and a few other personality defects that I might be intentionally forgetting. Apparently I will not be in charge of “ticket getting” for our next event.

On Monday night, however, we had good tickets, thanks to a friend of a friend. But we also had a spare set of ant-with-crumb tickets I had purchased before the better ones became available. The bad tickets were $36 apiece, and it was a Roger Federer match, so we figured we could just sell them to some ticketless fan on the way in. No point in wasting good ant-with-crumb tickets.

This created a dilemma.

Scalping is a crime within 1,500 feet of the entrance, as the signs clearly proclaimed. But we aren’t so good at estimating distance. We walked until we were approaching the Pennsylvania border, just to be on the safe side, and were surprised that no one was there waiting to buy ant-with-crumb tickets. But maybe we walked in the wrong direction, we thought. Perhaps there was a mob of ticketless people closer to Vermont. But by then we were exhausted and unsure we could even make it back to the entrance without a helicopter rescue. Eventually we decided we had a good reason to waste perfectly good tickets.

We found our seats in the loge section, behind a young man with an exceptional head. When he sat upright, we had a perfect view of the court. But when he leaned forward, as he preferred to do, his head seemed to grow to the size of a sperm whale, obscuring half of the court. We marveled at the impossibility of it all, and discussed our options.

One option involved moving to other seats and hoping the rightful owners didn’t show up. This didn’t work for me because I knew I would be feeling like a criminal all night. It was bad enough that I almost scalped tickets within the gravitational field of Earth; I couldn’t handle being a seat trespasser too.

The other option was to ask the young man to sit up straight for the entire match. But how reasonable is that? I decided it was better than trespassing. I tapped on his shoulder and explained the situation, leaving out the colorful “head like a sperm whale” descriptor. The young man readily agreed to sit upright, and did.

This created a new problem.

I like to lean forward when I watch tennis matches. But I couldn’t because I had just asked the guy with the sperm whale head not to. Let me tell you, when you can’t lean forward in your seat, that’s when you want it the most. It was forbidden fruit. I became obsessed with trying to find moments when the guy in front of me was unlikely to turn sideways and notice me with his peripheral vision. I think Roger Federer won the match, but that’s not the part I will remember for the rest of my life. I’ll only remember the day I couldn’t lean forward with impunity. I suspect the guy with the sperm whale head will also remember the day a stranger told him there was only one acceptable way to sit in his seat.

Anyway, I wish someone would just invent some sort of device that would display sporting events while you sat on your own couch. I think it would catch on.

Comments

[Bob]

You mean to say you spent a considerable part of your evening trying to sell a couple of tickets worth $72?! Either you're incredibly tight, or owning a string of restaurants and being one of the most famous syndicated cartoonists in the world doesn't pay as well as I thought it would. Please let me know if it's the latter so that I don't waste my time and energy trying to get rich by buying restaurants or becoming a famous cartoonist.

[Andy Watt]

You really ought to try to get over for the Stella Artois or Wimbledon tournaments Scott. America seems to excel at providing views at enormous heights of ants doing various things with crumbs, often including enormous containers of beer (from what I've seen on the Magic Box that Displays These Things- and let's face it, that's the bible). Either the beer is designed to stop you noticing the ants, or some form of malthusian check on people too tight to buy expensive seats...

Either way, hope your next tennis experience is better.

[justin]

you didn't need to watch the match- roger wins everything

[Stuart P. Bentley]

"Anyway, I wish someone would just invent some sort of device that would display sporting events while you sat on your own couch. I think it would catch on."

I heard somebody else is developing this as we speak (probably at Google). The world must be a simulation of your design.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

Screw the proles, serve the rich, dammit! Rip out all the damn seats, install Roman style couches, quintuple prices, serve the finest wines, beers, liquors, fresh sliced fruits, breads, meats and cheeses, believe me, they'll clean up even in a depression, I know, I read it online at Slate.com ( http://www.slate.com/id/2173456/fr/flyout ) .

[Steve Grob]

Next time you have extra tickets you might consider giving them away. You could commit an act of kindness and make some kid's day. It's usually easy to spot a father and son, a young couple, or someone else eager to see the action who you can be sure won't turn right around and sell them.

[KD]

"Anyway, I wish someone would just invent some sort of device that would display sporting events while you sat on your own couch. I think it would catch on.'

Yeah but they'd never show the sporting events you want to see at a good time for you. It'd either be premted by another game, they'd put it in a bad time slot, or worst of all you couldn't see it because of some funky league rules.

[dr ash]

Reinvinting the invention ? :
===========================

"Anyway, I wish someone would just invent some sort of device that would display sporting events while you sat on your own couch"

[ml/nj]

The size (and configuration) of Ashe Stadium is absurd for tennis. BRING BACK FOREST HILLS!!

[King]

Did you know that tennis backwards is sin net? Cue scary music...

[Amit]

Scott, thats another hilarious post during your dream form. Anyways i believe in making the "problem-creating-sperm whale" sucker to stop doing that himself. So what i would have done is as soon as he leans forward, use the space on his seat to keep my food stuff there. Ya if you have small kiddies, used diapers is a better option. Bet he would never lean forward again :D

[Luke]

Its the same problem in movies and anywhere theres a bunch of people sitting down looking at the same thing.

THEY NEED STEEPER SEATS PEOPLE!

[Mike Shaw]

Since when is sitting in someone else's seat trespassing!?

How else would I be able to sit in the reserved boxes at the horse track with my $2 tickets?

Hog-wash!

[James]

Uh, I don't think this solved the problem:

http://www.answers.com/main/NewsClick?url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070904/od_nm/nepal_airline_odd_dc;_ylt%3DAlt3e1CsrqU1io0wxd7jpc6s0NUE

[rd]

i bet you were talking about a hologram of ant-sized Federer-Roddick match, real-time 3D, not television

something like this
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/628227/holographic_dancing_mouse/
am i not a mind-reader :)

about tickets, last year i wanted to go to the Billy Joel concert at the Madison Square Garden, so went online to buy tickets, but was late, all tickets were sold except for some seats behind the scene
i was surprised how one can see the concert in those seats
well, i thought i am willing to seat there may be the wall is opaque or can be seen through and i can at least see the singer's back, music is the most important thing, you don't have to see it all from the front, just listen etc
but they wouldn't sell single tickets, only in pairs
and it was not cheap, somewhere around 60-100$, forgot the exact amount
so i asked some of my coworkers to go with me, but they have families or busy working on weekend or didn't like BJ or just didn't want those seats
irresolvable unforeseen obstacles to entertain myself in the Big Apple
in two yrs only two broadway shows seen, feel like i waste my time here :(

[Max]

Asd, of course he won't. There's nothing to argue about-- everyone knows C++ is best. :)

[D Mented]

What I like are the "art sports"; freestyle ice skating, gymnastics, Cirque Du Soleil acrobtics, stuff like that.
Trouble is, camera editors get artsy.
Their motto is obviously "show ANYTHING but the action!" so you get to see them switching cameras at the coolest instant in the performance, usually to an overhead that cuts out anything but a moving blob. They also like to cut away to shots of the audience oohing and aahing - NEVER letting you see what they were so impressed with.
Or they'll show you a cluster of shadows cast by a performer under multisource lighting; the shadows are moving interestingly, but the athlete was probably moving MORE interestingly.
They're just jealous because they can't do cool stuff like that, but they make the nosebleed seats look like a fantastic view.
D. Mented

[kristylynne]

Is it scalping if you sell the tickets for face value? I don't think so. I think it's only scalping if you make a profit.

[Kent]

More cat posts please. Less boring posts recapitulating the experience of watching a tennis match.

[The REAL Sperm Whale Head]

I resent being called a "Sperm Whale Head". You'll be talking to my lawyers tomorrow.

[vascoo]

-

I
never
used
to
watch tennis. But
for the first time i did it. It was the US open...
and it was cool...

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http://href.hu/x/2sv1
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[George]

From the few sports events I have been to, I recall spending a lot of time watching the megatron up at the ceiling. Basically its the stuff from TV...so I paid 80$ to watch TV in an ice rink (was at a few hockey games)...but there is also expensive beer and loud crazy fans. Some people relish the mob atmosphere; I never did.

[Tuzo]

Scott, your post reminds of a Slate article about Arthur Ashe Stadium, "The worst stadium in America" from 2002: http://www.slate.com/id/2069974/

Interesting from the article: "...at least half the spectators in Ashe now sit higher than the worst nosebleed seat the Open had to offer" in Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Yet more evidence for your hologram theory.

[synapticmisfires]

I live in the Chicagoland area (when I'm not going to college in New England) and I have been to Bears, Cubs, Sox, and Peoria Chiefs games. Wrigley Field is one of the best venues in all of sports: classic design, great atmosphere, seats close to the field, a bit of a hitters park, just absolutely beloved.

I still say that the best seating experience I have had was when my dad and I received free tickets to one of the rooftops outside the park. The bleachers had a great view of everything except very deep left field. Plus even though the game was rainy, we were able to go inside and keep an eye on the rain delay while the poor fans in the park suffered in the rain. Oh, and the food, pop, and booze was abundant and free.

Frankly, I don't think being inside of the park is very good at all for watching the game, people only really do it for the atmosphere. I mean if my experience inside Wrigley and US Cellular is so hit-or-miss in terms of accommodations alone, I can only imagine how much miserable fans are at less distinguished venues like Shea, Arthur Ashe, the old Astrodome, et. al.

[DWH]

Isn't there an ESPN channel that covers ant wrestling?Yet another eason why you could have stayed home.