It's Time For Locals To Stop Grumbling About Baseball Ticket Prices -- You Can Enjoy a Grand Time For a Song if You're Smart and a Little Devious

The other day, we wrote about how a Chronicle article claiming the San Francisco Giants were offering interest-free loans to season ticket-buyers came as news to the team itself. No, the local team isn't handing out fistfuls of cash to those who clamber through the turnstiles. But the larger theme of that Chron article -- that baseball has priced itself out of reach of the common man -- just isn't true locally.

It's frustrating that columnist Gwen Knapp obsessed over the ostentatiously priced sushi at new Yankee Stadium while only giving the barest mention of the fact that the ballpark-- and the Mets' new Citi Field -- were both built on the public's dime, at incredible expense well into the billions. The relatively Spartan surroundings of the Oakland Coliseum Knapp revels in do not compensate for the fact that the A's monstrosity of a stadium was also built at public expense.

Your humble narrator is an admitted Giants chauvinist. But the fact AT&T Park was privately financed is a matter of the utmost pride. On a more tangible, everyday level, however, those hoping to attend a Giants game can't get in for the rummage-in-the-couch days of yore. But with some smarts -- and a little deviousness -- even a sizable group can enjoy nine innings (or more) of baseball for a bargain price, all things considered. 

Every year, some organization releases a study of how much it costs to tote a family of four to the ballgame -- and, correspondingly, the nation's crusty old columnists rail about how they used to get into games by handing over a rusted jack, earwax, and some pocket lint.

Those days are indeed gone -- the lint market bottomed out years ago -- but cost approximations like this one ought not to be titled "average price for a family of four to attend a Major League Ballgame" but "average price for an incredibly stupid, profligate family to attend a ballgame while tossing around money like confetti." Sitting through a game in San Francisco, according to this study, should cost a family of four nearly $223 -- and that's down from last year. You know what? I bet you could pull this off for around $75 if not less. Here's how. 

First of all, these studies always include the price of two beers, four sodas, four hot dogs, two game programs, a parking permit, and two adult-sized adjustable caps. It's worth noting that only around 40 percent of the $223 total is due to the tickets -- the only real requirement on this list. Buying a cap at the game? Hope it's got a propeller on it, because you're not too swift; you will never pay more than at the ballpark. And it warrants mentioning that, even if you do feel the need to buy two adult-sized caps at the ballpark, you certainly don't need to do it more than once a year.

Here in San Francisco, there's no need to drive to the game (I'm going to be uncharitable and say that if your children are not yet capable of dealing with Muni, then it's positively discourteous to your fellow fans to bring them to a baseball game. Your kids won't have fun and you'll not make friends in your section). And there's certainly no need to piss away good money on top-dollar ballpark concessions. Plenty of great food can be toted from home or bought in the neighborhood for prices that are not particularly cheap -- but are downright frugal compared to the ballpark rate. As for the beer -- we'll get to that. That's where the deviousness comes in.

Here's how the routine went when yours truly was small. My father and I would ditch the car in Little Hollywood, buy sandwiches at Piccolo Pete's (if we hadn't packed them already), and walk through the neighborhood, through the paved lot, and through the dirt lot until we got to the pedestrian bridge adorned with the all-too-telling sign, "WELCOME TO CANDLESTICK PARK: HOME OF THE SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS, WORLD CHAMPS, 1981, 1984, 1988 AND 1989." And, in the corner, an afterthought: "HOME OF S.F. GIANTS." They only had room for the "S.F." after all that fanfare. 

Tickets cost anywhere from $3.75 for the bleachers to five or six bucks for the family pavilion and, perhaps a little more for upper deck -- where, yes, I saw Will Clark deposit some balls. It's easy to be nostalgic for those days -- but it's not productive because we're so much better off now.

First of all, as mentioned before, taking Muni to the games is a snap. Tickets can be had for as little as $10 -- really -- which compares favorably to $6 tickets 20 years ago. And while I miss the savvy of Candlestick's crowds (and hate the fact that AT&T Park fans tend to leap out of their seats and cheer a home run for balls the outfielders actually break in on), I don't miss the truly menacing drunks who lorded over Candlestick's icy grounds.

If you must buy paraphernalia at the ballpark, the Giants' dugout store actually has the occasional good deal -- sometimes a cap can cost as little as $10. And if a name player is ever released or traded in midseason, well, good news for you! A pal bought a Marquis Grissom shirt for all of $2 the day of the veteran's release -- that was roughly a 95 percent discount.

Finally, the beer. There is no love on earth like a parent's love for his or her child. And, in addition to the obvious reasons, children are wonderful for concealing clandestine beer. Or, if that's not your style, oversize fast-food cups happen to be much larger than beer cans while loose socks and belts can easily accommodate even a Sapporo 22-ouncer. Be creative, folks!

Let's put it this way: If the 16-year-old version of yours truly knew that, in 16 more years he'd be sitting in a world-class stadium located near rail lines and paying only $4 more per ticket -- while watching Tim Lincecum and sipping an Anchor Steam out of a Subway cup (how'd that get there?) -- well, he'd have been pretty stoked.