For less than $20 you can get a seat so close that you can hear dugout banter. Is this heaven? No, it's Lakeland, Fla. The Detroit Tigers hold their spring training in Lakeland, about an hour south of Orlando.
This year marks the 76th year that the Tigers are training in Lakeland, or "Tiger Town" as it's known in March. This is the longest lasting relationship between a city and a spring training host city. The relationship with the city is old, but the facilities are not. Joke Marchant Stadium got a $10 million makeover in 2003.
The Tigers' spring training schedule for 2012 begins on March 2 and runs through March 31. There are three ticket options: single game, flex-plan, and season tickets. There are a few ways to go about buying tickets. You can buy them through MLB.com, purchase them by phone by calling the Joker Marchant Stadium box office, or buy them through a third party vendor such as Stub Hub. There are usually enough seats available if you buy tickets ahead of time. If you have time it's always preferable to buy your tickets directly from MLB or from the stadium because you don't have to worry about ticket fraud. Third-party vendors are good if you simply must have that seat behind home plate or you're buying last minute.
Single-game tickets range anywhere from $9 for grass seating to $28 for field box seating. There are three different price schemes that are used depending on who the Tigers are playing. For example, when they play the Orioles on March 15, the tickets go by the "White Game Pricing", but when they play the Yankees on March 24, the price scheme will be "Navy Game Pricing".
The pricing schemes are as follows:
"White Game Pricing"
Field Box $22, Regular Box $21, Reserved $19, Wheelchair $19, Left Field Reserved $15, Bleachers $11, and Grass Berm $9
"Orange Game Pricing"
Field Box $25, Regular Box $24, Reserved $22, Wheelchair $22, Left Field Reserved $19, Bleachers $14, and Grass Berm $12
"Navy Game Pricing"
Field Box $28, Regular Box $27, Reserved $24, Wheelchair $24, Left Field Reserved $21, Bleachers $16, and Grass Berm $14
The flex-plan tickets are the same prices as the single-game tickets. Instead of buying tickets for one game, you are able to buy multiple tickets for multiple games. The biggest advantage of flex-plan tickets is that the Tigers reserve a certain amount premium game seats for flex-plan ticket holders. For example, as of today (Jan. 10) you can still get home plate and first base seating for the Yankees game on March 24, but if you buy a single ticket for the same game, the available seating is limited to left field, bleacher or grass seating.
