Back in 1970, when I started driving, gas was around 30 cents a gallon, as it was in 1963. Cheap.
When I started high school in 1967, it cost a nickel with a school pass to get on a bus and the subway.
When I was about 7 years old, a Carvel Flying Saucer was 7 cents. And a Brown Bonnet was a dime.
A Hersheys chocolate bar was a nickel, and Bazooka bubble gum was a penny.
When I went to Fordham in 1971-72, as a freshman, annual full year tuition was $2,000. Now, it's $56,000.
The U.S. national debt in 1963 was slightly over $300 billion. Now it's 100 times as high.
In 1971, I went to an outdoor concert in the Bronx...Yes, Humble Pie, and Mountain...5 dollars. Soon after, another trio concert - Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper - 5 dollars. Now, it costs more to see one knock-off band.
Also, nowadays, $5 does not cover the ticket processing fee.
A concert at the Fillmore East in December 1969? $3.50.
What about Mets' baseball? Back in the day? Also cheap.
You wanted a box seat? $3.50. Reserved seat? $2.50. General admission? $1.30. I used Borden milk carton coupons and got in for free many a time.
Heck, I used to make about $12.50 a week when I started delivering a newspaper route back in late 1965.
For one week's paperboy earnings, I could have bought 5 reserved seats at Shea.
Cable costs to watch the Mets on TV back then? Zero.
Who needed cable when you had rabbit ears?
And WOR 9 broadcast virtually every game for free.
Today? Cable ain't cheap.
And I took a quick look at Met ticket prices for an April 7, 2022 night game against the Braves.
You want "Metropolitan Field Platinum" seats? $196 each.
Too much? Well, Metropolitan Gold seats are "only" $117 each.
Maybe I can get another paper route, where I can earn $585 in a week, so I can buy 5 Metropolitan Gold tickets. Somehow, I don't think so. The amount of newspapers I'd have to fling, my arm would fall off.
My suggestion? Break out your barber's kit. Wouldn't you like to give every player making over $5 million a 50% salary haircut? Then,
ticket prices could be 50% cheaper. Still would be way higher than those 1963 tickets, on inflation-adjusted terms. But you got to start somewhere.
Because if someone wanted to take their wife and two kids to a game in 1963 in really, really good seats, it probably cost a total of $25 for ticket, food and drink, and transportation. Cheap.
Today, it would be $1,000, easy. Cuckoo.
The old days. Simpler, cheaper times.
Can you imagine, in simpler, cheaper times in the 1950s, having 3 teams - in NYC - like the Giants, Yankees and Dodgers? And cheap tickets? The first game I ever went to was at Yankee Stadium with my Dad and brother John. Dad got obstructed view box seats (behind a girder) for 90 cents each, then slipped the usher a buck and we were all down 10 rows behind the dugout. Total ticket investment? $3.70.
Anyway, with those 3 great teams, you were in heaven, no matter who you rooted for.
Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. And a whole lot more.
The old days. Gone forever.
It is OK if you want to shed a tear.
At least we got blaring sound effects now.
Anyway, I'll pay the first person to respond to this article a nickel.
Don't spend it all in one place.
5 comments:
Those days are soooo far away! You forgot to mention that you could buy a decent first baseman (Ed Kranepool) for $11,000 back then.
The 2022 ticket prices are pretty obscene, and discourage young families from coming out for the game. Corporate seats are more the norm. That's not moving in the direction of cultivating a new generation of baseball fans!
By the way Tom, I don't need the nickel - but I'll take a Hershey Bar! :)
LOL
The only thing I've found is that buying tickets at Stub Hub when the Mets are struggling, can be reasonably cheap. I don't go to too many games, but the last game I did go to, I think my ticket cost less than a bag of peanuts.
Great post Tom and I remember it well. Just pulled out some old ticket stubs and one for April 6, 73' loge reserved 3 bucks. I was stationed in Long Beach CA. in the Navy in 66' and a Dodger field box seat was $3.50 but I was also getting $55 for hazardous duty pay (for flight deck assignment) and another $55 for combat pay when we were in the Gulf of Tonkin so I was loaded and could afford it..LOL. I also owned a Carvel in Union N.J. and made a commercial with Tom Carvel ahh the old days great memories.
73' WS ticket 10 bucks. Carvel cone 15 cents and a 7" cake $3.95 in 76'.
Gary, cool stuff. Amazing the Tom Carvel linkage there.
Bartolo Colon never went for the Thinny Thin, that's for sure.
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