Fans Guessing Raiders Would Be a Hot Ticket Get Burned

About that great planning . . .

Some fans thought they would increase the odds of getting Oakland Raider season tickets by mailing in multiple applications for the expensive personal seat licenses, which give fans the right to buy seats. But that strategy backfired for people such as Mark Stauffer when demand was less than expected and Stauffer was granted all five bids for four seats each.

That saddles him with fees of $22,500, with the next installment of $12,500 due Tuesday as Stauffer desperately tries to sell all but four tickets. If he doesn’t wish to pay that, he’s still faced with losing a $3,000 non-refundable deposit on the seats.

Officials won’t say how many fans are in the same predicament. But, the San Jose Mercury News reported, Stauffer isn’t alone in fearing a crush and then getting an unwanted windfall.

“I’m a Raider fan since I was a kid, but this has been a lot of hype and I fell for it,” said Stauffer, an Oakland real estate appraiser. “When I entered, I figured I’d be lucky to get any seats. Now I’ve dug myself into a deep hole.”

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Add tickets: The consumer fraud division of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has received four complaints about the process, Lt. David Gingery said.

This predicament has angered many fans, who said they feel used by the team and misled by publicity about the high demand for tickets at the 50,000-seat Oakland Coliseum.

Used? Misled? Impossible. Not the Raiders.

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Trivia time: Who pinch hit for Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh?

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Whither Broncomania? That’s what some people in Denver are asking, a notion that borders on heresy in the Rocky Mountain region.

The Rockies are a huge hit, the NHL comes to town this fall, and the Nuggets will draw interest with the arrival of rookie Antonio McDyess and the scheduled return of LaPhonso Ellis. All of which has cut into the Broncos’ once-impenetrable fan base, according to the Denver Post.

How evident is it?

The Broncos recently offered season-ticket holders a chance to fly on the team charter to Tokyo for an exhibition game against San Francisco, but that was met with so much apathy that they opened it up to all customers. What’s more, the Broncos had more than 30,000 no-shows last year for only the second time in 10 years, and the other, in 1987, was practically the result of one late-season game in a blizzard.

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Dodger blue, silver and black: Jay Leno, on the Dodgers forfeiting a game last week when people threw free baseballs from the stands:

“Now we know where all the Raider fans are.”

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Trivia answer: Mike Lum.

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Quotebook: New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: “Mickey Mantle represented something special to all of us--massive power, great talent and youth. The image of No. 7 in pinstripes finishing his home run swing will live in our memories forever.”