THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2004
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5B
Postseason tickets nearly gone
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST, LOUIS — Reggie Tillitt braved a chilly night outside Busch Stadium, warmed only by the glow of an X-Box video game system plugged into a nearby outlet. But Yesterday morning he clutched the object of his quest 40 Cardinals postseason tickets.
They weren't quite where he wanted, but for Tillitt, the upper deck seats were worth maxing out his credit card and standing in line for 18 hours.
"I didn't get here early enough," said the 24-year-old from Murphysboro, Ill., who had arrived at Busch Stadium at 4 p.m. the day before.
About 90,000 division series and championship series tickets went on sale at 8 a.m. Yesterday, sold by phone, through the Cardinals' Web site and in person at ticket windows. Between 12,000 and 13,000 tickets were available for each of seven potential home games. World Series tickets will be sold later.
By late afternoon, tickets for some games were already sold
out; a handful of tickets for other games remained, but ticket sales director Joe Strohm expected the rest to be sold out within hours. He said tickets have sold more briskly than in past championship years — the Cardinals have made the playoffs three of the past four seasons.
Fans were allowed to line up beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, but many arrived long before that, some as early as Sunday.
They braved temperatures that varied from the low 50s overnight to the mid 80s during the day, sleeping on hard cement sidewalks, folding chairs, or another person's shoulder. Some made makeshift campsites, complete with tents.
For Jenna Kirkman, 25, a community college student, being 370th in line didn't dim her expectations of getting good seats.
"It's kind of like when you're at a game, in the bottom of the ninth, and down by eight runs —
I'm confident," said Kirkman, clutching an empty can of sugar-free Red Bull energy drink that served as breakfast.
She and her friend Juliann Oberkramer, 19, had been in line since 1 a.m. Yesterday — an overnight stay eased by the presence of a lightweight foam rubber couch with a pull-out mattress.
Cardinals fans are considered among the most loyal and knowledgeable in all of baseball. The team typically draws more than 3 million fans, ranking near the top of the sport's attendance figures. During home games, streams of fans flood into the stadium dressed head-to-toe in the team colors of red and white, holding scorebooks or seat cushions emblazoned with the Cardinals logo.
"We're going to modify the couch — add some wheels, some pockets on the back," Kirkman added.
"We decided we're going to make this a yearly thing," Oberkramer said.
Standing behind the counter of the Cardinals Clubhouse Shop in Union Station, Jake
Dimmitt said 2004 sales have been among his strongest ever. The shop is planning to add seven or eight additional workers to help out during the playoffs. On an average home game day, the shop might sell up to $30,000 dollars worth of Cardinals merchandise.
"There's not a top seller — basically it's anything that says Cardinals or has 'St. Louis' on it. It's been like this all summer," Dimmitt said.
And Cardinals fans don't just buy a shirt or a single hat — Dimmitt said it's not uncommon for people to buy whole wardrobes, right down to a pair of Cardinals shoes.
At the stadium, Kirkham said the need to wait in line for tickets is "just the way it is in St. Louis."
Dimmitt said the team's record — a baseball-best 98-52 heading into play yesterday — and a team of standout players helps contribute to the enthusiasm.
"It's like being born into a religion," Kirkham said. "You don't know any better. You don't question it."
American cyclist suspect of doping
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Another sweet sports story turned sour with the news that Olympic cycling champion Tyler Hamilton tested positive for blood doping.
Because it almost doesn't matter what happens from here on out.
Cycling insiders will tell you the 33-year-old American was the nicest guy in racing, one of the most deserving, and the last one they thought would get busted. Cynics, meanwhile, simply wink at the notion that anybody that good could be clean.
In the past, Hamilton stood up for the rest of his sport. Those words used to carry a lot of weight. This time he was speaking for himself. The sad part is that nobody gets the benefit of the doubt anymore.
"I am 100 percent innocent," he said Tuesday while awaiting the results of backup tests. "I worked hard for that gold medal, and it isn't going anywhere."
The results of new and improved doping tests in the Athens Olympics last month and at the Spanish Vuelta less than two weeks ago say something else. Both evidence of blood
from another person, a signal that Hamilton received a transfusion, an old-school cycling ruse to boost performance by increasing the amount of oxygen-transporting red blood cells in his system.
"No. 1, that's risking my life," he said, citing the fear of contracting AIDS. "No. 2, that's risking my wife's life. And for someone to accuse me of doing that... I'm very angry about that."
And he's not the only one.
And he's not the only one. Summing up the mood in the riding community in the States, editor Steve Madden of Bicycling magazine said, "It's a bad day for American cycling if
The reason is that stories abound about Hamilton's courage, his long-suffering display of loyalty and his sense of fairness as a competitor. The thinking goes that if guys like Hamilton are dirty, then maybe the cynics have it right; maybe everybody else is, too.
it's true. It's a bad day, in fact,
even if it isn't "true."
In the 2003 Tour de France, just two years after giving up his job as Lance Armstrong's chief lieutenant to lead his own team, Hamilton broke his collarbone in the first stage and rode through the pain to a fourth-place finish.
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