puskar.jpg

Chicago Cubs fans celebrate at Progressive Field after the Cubs' 8-7 win over the Cleveland Indians in deciding Game 7 of the World Series. But why were there were so many Cubs fans in the Cleveland stands in the first place? Ted Diadiun identifies a culprit: the Indians' No. 1 fans, the season ticket holders, many of whom sold their extra tickets at huge markups.

(Gene J. Puskar, Associated Press)

CLEVELAND -- In the wake of the euphoria created by the Cleveland Indians' improbable run to the very last out of the 2016 World Series against the Chicago Cubs, I'd be the last one to want to inject a discouraging word. And in the spirit of good sportsmanship toward a previously drought-stricken baseball franchise, I sure don't want to be accused of sour grapes.

But ...

Did you SEE all those Cubs fans who infested Progressive Field last Wednesday night, buzzing around with their W flags like so many invasive Lake Erie mayflies, and singing that godforsaken "Go Cubs Go" song until you wanted to swat them like bugs???

Perhaps I'm still in a foul mood about it all because of the group of annoying young guys who sat behind us in the back of Section 117 for the deciding game. They were the kind of people for whom it is not enough to cheer for their own team; they must also, at the top of their lungs, belittle the other team, the town and its fans. I finally turned around and said, "Where do you guys think you are? Chicago?"

I guess you couldn't really blame them for being momentarily confused, though. Judging from the approving crescendo that echoed through the ballpark whenever the Cubs did something good, an uninformed onlooker might think he actually was sitting in Wrigley Field, the place the Cubs call home.

I've seen estimates that the split in fan loyalty at Progressive Field that night was as high as 50-50. I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but there's no way of really knowing. From my perspective, it was more like 25 percent to 30 percent Cub fans -- which is still an awful lot of anti-Indians noise, infringing on what was supposed to be our home field advantage.

Where did all those Windy City windbags come from, anyway?

I'll tell you where:

"We have met the enemy," Walt Kelly famously wrote in his Pogo comic strip back in 1971, "and he is us."

That's right. The people who gave away the Indians' home field advantage were the most loyal fans there are ... the season ticket holders.

When the post-season began, the Indians front office decided to reward their fan base by allowing each season ticket account to purchase not only complete strips for their own seats throughout the playoffs, but also to buy as many as eight additional tickets for each playoff game.

"We know that most season tickets are owned not by just the account holder of record, but by groups of fans who split the cost and share the seats," said Bob DiBiasio, the Indians' senior vice president for public affairs. "So we wanted to provide the season ticket holders with more tickets so that the entire group could go to the games."

"We just thought it was the right thing to do," he said, to "reward you for being part of a season ticket group because that's the foundation of our franchise, our most cherished customers."

The problem was, an awful lot of those cherished customers interpreted the Indians' decision not as a reward for their loyalty or an opportunity to spread World Series tickets among their friends and ticket group mates, but as a chance to make a financial killing.

So they snapped up the extra tickets, posted them on secondary ticket markets like StubHub and SeatGeek at many times the face value and pocketed the profit.

On Wednesday, TicketIQ, an event ticket search engine, posted that the average price people were getting per Game 7 ticket was $2,700 -- more than 10 times face value of most seats in the house. Some estimates were far higher.

And who bought these tickets? Well-heeled and championship-starved Cub fans. The TicketIQ site said that 37 percent of Game 7 buyers were from the Chicago area, as opposed to only 22 percent from Cleveland.

CrainsCleveland.com reported that data from StubHub showed 60 percent of its sales for Game 7 came from Illinois, and that 36 percent of SeatGeek's Game 7 traffic came from Chicago, compared with 12 percent from Cleveland.

The lure of easy money was just too much for some Indians fans.

I talked to a 25-year-old fan who has a 20-game plan in the bleachers that costs him $400 a year for two tickets. That qualified him for the extra ticket buy, and he said he sold 16 World Series tickets for more than $10,000 profit.

It's sort of hard to blame him, even if he was helping load the field with Cub fans.

"I completely understand that perception," he said, "but I don't make a lot of money. How could I not do it?"

Having had their attempt to spread the playoff tickets among their season ticket holders blow up in their face, the Indians plan to consider other options for next year. As someone who is in charge of a season ticket group and used the extra tickets the way they were intended, I'll be sorry to see that.

But if whatever plan they come up with results in more Indians fans in the seats, and fewer loud-mouthed interlopers, I'm fine with it.

Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

*********

Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue) just below.