I haven’t been to a Dodgers game since the late ’90s. I was thinking last weekend about going again. (Tatiana’s never seen a baseball game.) Maybe the Dodgers vs. the Mariners on Tuesday, 5.11. But I can’t do the nosebleed section. I don’t have to sit along the baselines or behind home plate, but I have to be able to smell the grass and the dirt…aromas (including the hot dogs and those big plastic cups of beer) are everything to me.

So I checked with seatgeek.com and Jumpin’ Jeezus! $197 to $232 each or $400 to $460 a pair! These are Covid prices — the teams have to charge more, I’m told, because fewer seats are being sold due to safe spacing — but still.

A 2002 ticket-price graph (converted to ’02 dollars) says that the average 1920 ballgame ticket cost around $9 (in ’02 dollars). By 1950 the average price was $11.50 (again, in ’02 dollars). In 1985 the average price was $10.15. In 2001 the average ducat cost $18.60.

In May 2016 I bought three tickets to a Mets-Giants game for $230 (Jett, Cait and myself). The weather was so horrific we didn’t go.

I asked Jett what he’s recently paid for a New York-area game. “I pay like $150 for really shitty NY Giants tickets,” he replied. “It varies from game to game, section to section. It costs $38 for nosebleeds to see the Reds @ the Dodgers.”