Vendors Win Before Game Has Started : Ticketless Fans at Least Get Souvenirs at Anaheim Stadium

Dozens of baseball fans scurried around Anaheim Stadium this morning to buy souvenirs of tonight’s 60th All-Star game, but most of them will not be anywhere near the Big A when the game starts at 5:30 p.m.

“I figure this is the next best thing,” said Al Simmons of Indianapolis, who came to the stadium with his wife, two sons and two of their friends to find memorabilia to take back home. Simmons did not have tickets for the game, but, he said, “There’s no traffic now either.”

Souvenir tents around the stadium sold everything from T-shirts to teddy bears this morning. Business was expected to pick up when the ticket-holding fans make their way through rush hour traffic to get to the midsummer classic.

Souvenirs Instead of Tickets

“Today, people are still showing up for tickets, but most of them are leaving with souvenirs instead,” said Richard Bitner, 22, who manned one of five souvenir stands outside the stadium.

Bitner said he and his partner, Richard Prater, 18, sold about $6,200 worth of goods Monday and are expecting to sell $10,000 before fans flock out of the stadium tonight.

The pair, poised to make about $300 each on commissions, sold popular white cotton caps bearing the All-Star game logo ($12) and T-shirts with caricatures of popular players ($15). Other items in their tent included baseball cards, mugs and team caps with signatures of top players. Programs at $5 also sold well, they said.

Fans could even buy souvenir envelopes for $1 and have them canceled nearby with a special U.S. Postal Service stamp.

Next to Gate 1, Postal Service worker Mike Boehm was busy canceling 25-cent Lou Gehrig stamps stuck on souvenir envelopes.

“Heavens knows,” Boehm said when asked how many envelopes he had stamped. But he did come prepared, wearing a blue batting glove to help ease the pounding.

“After you do this all day, you have an excuse for a hand massage,” he said as patrons gathered for mementos destined for mailboxes.

Cynthia Doe of Huntington Beach spent $80 around the stadium for her 10-year-old son, Chris, a Little Leaguer.

‘Make Him Happy’

“This sounds corny, but I want to make him happy,” Doe said, clutching a bag filled with two programs, a pennant, a cap, baseball cards and envelopes. “I came here with $80 thinking I’d spend $20.”

A program vendor said real fans--those paying a minimum of $50 for tickets to the game--will keep him profitable.

“Five bucks is nothing when you’re paying that much to go to the game,” he said.

One woman came to his booth and whipped out her pocketbook.

“I need a program,” she said. “It’ll make a boy in New York very happy.”