Unflappable in Anaheim : Ticket Director Has the Disposition of an Angel

The day after the California Angels clinched the American League Western Division championship, a man who was all brisk business called the Angel ticket office and asked for ticket manager Carl Gordon. Asked if he knew Gordon, he said, no, but he was a close friend of Angel Manager Gene Mauch. So he was connected with Gordon’s assistant, Fred Klengenmeier.

“I went to school with Gene Mauch in Desert Hot Springs,” the caller said, “and I’d like to get 20 playoff tickets. I know Gene would want me to have them.”

“Fine,” Klengenmeier said, “let me connect you with Mr. Mauch’s office, and he can call us and authorize the tickets.”

Long pause.

“Well,” the caller said, “that might be a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“I haven’t seen Gene for about 20 years. There’s a chance he won’t remember me.”

He didn’t.

This ploy was a variation of the “I’m an old friend of Gene Autry” routine that is heard frequently these pennant-winning days in the Angel ticket office--and gets the same response as that given to Mauch’s “old friend.” Except once in a very great while, it’s true.

Like two weeks ago, when a man called in for tickets and identified himself as the brother of Angel owner Gene Autry’s wife, Jackie. The operator connected the caller with Carl Gordon, who didn’t know Jackie Autry had a brother. But as an ex-banker who learned early to be cautious, Gordon politely suggested the caller contact the Autrys directly. A few minutes later, he heard from upstairs. It really was Jackie Autry’s brother--and he got the tickets.

He paid for them, however. Gordon stressed that there aren’t any freebies at playoff or World Series time--by order of the baseball commissioner. “Every seat has to be paid for--including the owner’s box,” Gordon said. (Jackie Autry corroborated this. “We pay for 24 seats,” she said, “but we only put 20 people in the box so Gene can see better.”)

These calls are typical of the current frenetic scene in the Angel ticket office. The reason, of course, is the Angels’ third division-winning effort in the club’s 25-year history. “Suddenly,” Carl Gordon said, “we’re hearing from dozens of friends we didn’t know we had, or business connections who only call once a year--at playoff time. A sure tip-off is when they ask directions to the stadium.”

But these are problems Gordon embraces happily--and seems uniquely equipped to handle. Donald Pries, director of the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau and a former Baltimore Oriole executive, calls Gordon “unflappable in a paranoid business”--which is precisely the way he comes across.

A tall, thin, sartorial man with carefully combed graying hair, rimless eyeglasses and a soft voice, Gordon resembles the banker he used to be. He spent 15 years with the Bank of America before he began moonlighting as an Angel ticket seller when the team moved to Anaheim. He joined the Angels full time in 1969, and became director of ticketing and customer service in 1972.

Fifth Time Around

This is the fifth time during that span Gordon has had to deal with post-season ticketing--but on two of those occasions, the Angels were left with several hundred thousand useless playoff tickets. And on all four previous occasions, the World Series tickets ended up in the incinerator.

Under baseball rules, every team in contention in early September has to print playoff and World Series tickets. The order goes directly to the ticket companies from baseball commissioner Peter Uberroth. The cost of unused tickets ($6,000 last year for the Angels) is split between the commissioner’s office and the losing team. “If we win,” Gordon said, “we pay the whole thing.” He thought that over a moment, then added: “And, of course, we’re happy to do that.”

Anaheim Stadium seats 64,000 for baseball, and well over half of those playoff and World Series seats go to season ticket holders. The Angels’ 17,500 season tickets are second only to the Dodgers among major league teams. Each season ticket holder is entitled to buy post-season tickets up to twice the number of season tickets he holds--and this option is exercised almost 100%. (For the first time this year, the playoffs will be the best four out of seven games, and by the luck of the draw, the Angels will be at home for games 3, 4 and 5 in both the playoffs and World Series.)

Must Buy Both

Tickets come in strips of six--three playoff and three World Series games per strip. Season ticket holders can’t buy one or the other; they must buy both. The tab is $195 for each strip of six tickets--$25 for playoff games, $40 for Series games. Refunds for games that aren’t played can be picked up at any Security Pacific Bank branch.

After season ticket holders are satisfied, orders are honored from people on the occasional-ticket mailing list of the Angels. (“We take care of our regular season customers first,” Gordon said, “at least the ones we can identify because we have their names in our computer.”) Then after the allotments are made to other clubs (unlike football, ticket reciprocity between contending teams is very low; Boston will get only 500 tickets to the games in Anaheim), about 20,000 seats--mostly those added in center field to accommodate the football Rams--go on public sale, with a limit of four per person per game.

That operation took place starting at 9 last Wednesday morning for the three playoff games (Oct. 10, 11 and 12) scheduled for Anaheim. It turned out to be a long process, mostly because, Gordon said, “each person waiting in line was buying for three games and being very selective about seat locations.” Although early comers to Anaheim Stadium had been wrist-banded to avoid the all-night lines and jousting common to such events, there were still more than 10,000 people milling around the ticket booths at the stadium on Wednesday, and the selling continued to almost midnight, when the last standee had been served. Since a number of people had given up and gone home, ticket windows were opened again on Thursday morning, and by noon all available tickets had been sold. About one-fourth of the public sale was handled through Ticketron agencies in the Los Angeles area--and Gordon insists that coming to the stadium offered no advantage in quality of seats.

He also urged fans not to assume that no tickets are available. “We have returns right up to game time,” he said Friday, “especially from the allotments to other teams. . . . I would urge people to check with us at (714) 634-2000 before they give up.”

One Minor Change

The same scene will be repeated if the Angels make it to the World Series--with one minor change. “We didn’t make the wrist-banding time clear for the playoffs,” Gordon said. “We will for World Series tickets.

“If the playoffs go the full seven games, we’ll probably put World Series tickets on sale on Saturday the 18th. If the playoff ends sooner, we’ll start selling sooner. People should listen for a public announcement.”

He perhaps should have added an official public announcement. Not all such announcements have been accurate. An angry phone caller was turned over to Gordon the other day because he was insisting that a radio sportscaster had said flatly that tickets were going on sale two days earlier than announced by the Angels--and he wanted to know why the public was being duped. Patiently, Gordon explained that a lot of erroneous information was going around and the sportscaster must have picked up on it. The caller wasn’t buying that. Finally, Gordon told him in the closest thing to exasperation he allows: “Your information is wrong. If you want to waste a trip over here, I can’t stop you. But there won’t be any tickets being sold.”

For every hungry Angel fan willing to stand in line for seats in outer space just for a chance to be in the stadium for a playoff or World Series, there seem to be two others trying to shortcut the system by conning their way in.

Ticket-Procuring Routines

Like the man from Toronto who called to say he couldn’t possibly come to Anaheim to stand in line and didn’t really know anyone in Southern California well enough to ask them to do it for him, so surely the ticket people would be compassionate enough to send him tickets.

Or the mayor of a Midwestern town who said one of the Boston players had grown up there and if the Angels would kindly send a passel of tickets, the good local citizens would happily spend lots of money in Anaheim.

Does Gordon have any suggestion about how best to get playoff and World Series tickets--if not this year, then the next time the Angels make it?

Simplest Way

“Well,” he said, “the simplest way is to buy a season ticket. But the people who can’t afford that should order single game tickets whenever they can by mail. That way, their names go on our mailing list, and we give them a shot at tickets to post-season games before they go on public sale.”

This is just the sort of topic major league ticket managers talk about during their annual meetings. This year, the meeting will be hosted by the Boston Red Sox ticket manager soon after the World Series. “I’d hate to be in his spot right now,” mused Gordon, “having to plan that conference and worry about World Series tickets at the same time.”

Then Gordon brightened. “Maybe he won’t have to worry about the World Series, after all,” he said cheerfully.

If Boston doesn’t have to worry, Carl Gordon will. And he’s ready. Back in the bowels of the Angel ticket office is a vault monitored as carefully as any bank. In it today are about 25,000 Angel World Series tickets waiting to go on public sale. Carl Gordon doesn’t want to burn those tickets. Not again. So now it’s up to the ballplayers to bring Gene Autry--and Carl Gordon--their first World Series.