Given the direction MLB and the Mets have been heading, I will not give them a cent this year, and will pay less attention than I have for many years. I recently posted about my disgust: I’m sick of the greed and the ownership and the corruption of the sport. But I’m writing tonight’s post after receiving an email from the Mets that I found totally bewildering.

It was typical promotional stuff about bobbleheads and other giveaways. For decades, teams have given out small promotions on certain days as a sort of inducement/thank you for coming. So you’d receive a poster or t-shirt or hat or flag or bobblehead or whatever. Just some little gewgaw you could keep and put on your shelf or file away with your memorabilia.

The weird part was that the Mets wrote that you needed a special extra ticket, beyond the price of admission, to get the bobblehead. That seemed crazy to me–these things are cheap junk, after all–but what I found out when I clicked the link was even crazier. That extra ticket costs–get this–$120. So you pay for an outrageously expensive ticket just for the right to buy another ticket to get the tacky tchotchke.

Incredible. As PT Barnum once supposedly said, there’s a sucker born every minute. Or as Waylon Smithers remarked of a 100% surcharge on tickets tacked on by Mr. Burns: “Well, it’s a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.”

A $120 bobblehead. And I thought the price of mlb tv was absurd.