Sour Grapes

My friends and I have had Cardinals season tickets for 13 years. We have been loyal fans, sitting in the sun (at Sun Devil Stadium), drinking beer, buying products, and watching some really bad football and even worse team management. No need to document the well-known foibles of the AZ Cardinals here. We've been loyal as fans and we love the players. We love Arizona. We love our team. And now that love is finally being paid off- The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl!

Today we received the bad news.

Dear Season Ticket Holder:
Thank you for your tremendous support throughout this historic season. It was certainly true when Coach Whisenhunt said the team could not have made it this far without the incredible home field advantage the team receives at each and every home game.
The drawing for season ticket holders to determine which accounts are able to purchase Super Bowl tickets has taken place and notification letters were mailed Friday, Jan. 16. Unfortunately, your account was not selected.
Please see below for a number of Super Bowl related links including the contact information for fan travel packages including game tickets.

The bad news is certainly frustrating. But we understand it. There are only so many tickets to go around. After all corporate sponsors and team bigwigs need their share. Heck some of them even like football!

But the outrage came at the end of the form email. The link they provided for ticket packages was to a so-called "travel promoter." The promoter offers packages that include tickets to the game. Check out this ticket broker's site HERE.

That's right. The Cardinals' "Official Fan Travel Partner" is offering special packages to CARDINALS FANS to go to the game. You get a room, a gift bag, and tickets to the game for only $6k or so. So in other words, World Events Packages" is not really a travel partner. It is a TICKET SCALPER. They are making money selling tickets to long-time fans that include lame hotel rooms, SB trinkets, and "parties" in order to justify the outrageous profits they are making selling tickets.

There is NO justification for this company having a single ticket to sell, let alone several thousand. The Cardinals are finally a success, due in large part to the HUGE TAX PAYER SUBSIDY they received in the form of their new stadium in Glendale. They are making plenty of $. Yet that is not enough. They took the tickets away from loyal fans and gave them to a ticket broker in return for a fee. Sickening. Pathetic. Just plain wrong.

The Cardinals will have some excuse about "NFL requirements" or the like, but they'll have nothing legitimate to say. They turned their backs on fans in return for just a few more dollars. Basically the Cardinals just spit in our faces.

UPDATE: We got tickets! But my criticism of the sale of tickets to scalpers remains.

Bizarro Nation

Within about fifty hours this coming week, the Arizona cardinals will host the NFC Championship Game, and the nation will watch as an African-American is sworn in as the leader of the free world. Neither event would have been predicted by any sane person even a decade ago, but enjoy these bizarro moments while you can. Let's just hope Mister Mxyzptlk will be strolling the sidelines in Cardinal red.

Sickening.

Peter King of SI.com reports:

"About New York'' column in Saturday's New York Times about the Yankees' request to the city for $370-million in additional taxpayer financing, on the heels of already getting $942 in prior financing; in addition, the city has committed $660 million to replace the open spaces used by the next stadium and for parking improvements. On the heels of a superb ESPN report last summer on the vanishing play spaces for Bronx youth because of the stadium, this is more of the same. For improvements to the video and sound systems in the stadium, the Yankees want $34 million. This is a team that just spent $423 million on three players? What unmitigated gall.

All I can say is "How dare the Yankees?!" Have they no shame? They make crazy, buttloads of money, completely unbalance the MLB financial structure, buy playoff teams and then ask for a handout? If they get it, the officials who approve it should be impeached.

I WANT this belt

Check out the WWF-Style belt won by Bertrand Berry for having the most sacks on the Cardinals this year. Former Steeler Clark Haggins brought the idea from Pittsburgh and had the belt made at the beginning of the year. Very cool.

Here comes the UFL!

Interview with the UFL's founder and the UFL's commissioner.

Charles Barkley for Governor?

Though Sir Charles gets points for honesty, I think his chances of being Alabama's governor just went down to zero.

Read the police report of his DUI arrest on The Smoking Gun by clicking HERE.