At Chase, One "Favor" Doesnt Deserve Another

                                                18,745 last night

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2 PM Friday --- Out of the goodness of our hearts, and in the best interests of baseball, the DiamondHacks editorial board has, against our better judgement, actually purchased three tickets to tonight's show featuring the Houston Astros and the Arizona Diamondbacks @ Chase Ho Park.

On a Friday!

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POSTGAME UPDATE: Friday April 14 10:15PM

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Just got back from the game and, boy, are we sorry we went. My wife, son and I endured the dumbest ballpark employee we've ever met in nearly a decade's worth of games(about 300 overall) at Chase Ho Park.

In summary, we sat in a different section from the one where our purchased tickets were located and were asked to leave the section by the usher. On the face of it, it sounds like perfectly reasonable enforcement of a basic ballpark policy, but humor me a minute as I fill in some relevant context. 

1.  We sat in and around our purchased bleacher seats(Section 105) for about 3-4 innings and then slid over to adjacent section 106 to get more elbow room. My wife specifically scoped out seats about 10 rows behind the visitor's bullpen, away from 106's few paying fans, so as not to crowd any of them, physically or psychologically.

2. There were twenty or 25 other fans sitting in the entire 106 section, which I estimate has about 300-400 seats. We sat there for 4-5 innings, leaving and returning to "our" seats several times without incident.

3. During our stay in "106", we took note of an usher who marched all the way down her aisle seven or eight times to accost a variety of fans - mostly young, well-mannered  kids - for standing next to the bullpen to get a closeup look at the pitchers. I want to emphasize that the kids, aged 6 to 8 or so, were the antithesis of the aggressive, streetwise urchins we've all seen loitering around ballparks. They were quietly watching the Astro relievers warm up. They were not throwing anything, tangible or verbal, or doing anything remotely disruptive, like blocking any fans' view of the game,and seemed surprised and chastened each time they sheepishly returned to their parents' seats.

4. Eighth inning, after loads of the 24,512 initial patrons had already headed home following a 7th inning DHacks rally, usher marches down the aisle and asks to see our tickets. I'm with my wife and boy, by ourselves, quietly shuckin' peanuts. No alcohol, attitude, language, nuthin'. She tells us we're in the wrong section and we have to move back. The policy speech. I asked what did it matter since the sections are comparably priced and we didnt appear to be bothering anyone, except presumably her. She said it didnt matter - it was the rules. Again, this wasn't second ining in the field boxes. Eighth inning, well behind the bullpen, nobody within 20 feet of us, we've been coming in and out for four innings.

5. My wife wanted to speak with the usher's super. He explained that the usher was a new hire and that she was just following policy set "up high" and that to change the policy we would have to...I interrupted the gentleman to explain we didnt want to change any "policy". We just wanted to express our displeasure that his employee repeatedly went out of her way to alienate batches of not easily offended paying customers - something that regular readers here know the DiamondHacks have in historically short supply.

The super seemed like a decent enough guy - after our initial umbrage, we even had him laughing in a few minutes - but I have to add, in retrospect, that while he wasn't confrontational or belligerent, he also didnt apologize or even acknowledge our frustration other than to say she was "new",etc.

Regular readers of DiamondHacks might assume I'm a troublemaker, and while it's true I've been peripherally involved in a couple minor ballpark incidents spanning several hundred games, this was the first time I've ever had cause to complain about any BOB/CHASE employee, a few of whom have asked me to move locations under more reasonable circumstances. Over the years, Colangelo's ushers at BOB - uniformly polite, common sense older folks - had spoiled us to the point where we forgot how much ill will an oblivious idiot with a plastic ID badge can cause.

This poor fool's officious sense of urgency amidst a sea of empty seats way out behind the foul pole, like she was defending some terribly important principle was silly, but of course, she's not the real problem. She's poorly trained and after talking with her "boss", my guess is she will continue to be so. 

At least until the gangbangers fill up her section for the first Dodgers game.

Heh.