Finally realizing that there was actual demand to go to a baseball game in St. Petersburg, the Rays have uncovered the seats in the upper deck and made them available for Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS. Last night, the announced attendance at the Trop improved by nearly 6,000 over the previous “sell-out” capacity of 35,000.

(These people had never even heard of baseball until two weeks ago)

In the interest of fairness and accessibility for all fans, the tickets were distributed via a lottery system. Unless, of course, you could come up with a truckload of money to give the team. Then they’ll have no problem letting you bypass that whole lottery nonsense.

Of course, if you want to ensure that you’ll be watching baseball tonight and not more reruns of WB shows, it might pay to take out that second mortgage. In fact, the Rays are going to give you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase tickets to the games you want to see for face value, as long as you give them a bunch of money for 81 games you aren’t very concerned about right now.

Here’s how it works, according to WALKOFF WALK:

• Place a $750 deposit per seat toward a 2009 full season plan and receive the opportunity to purchase a postseason ticket package in the Upper Deck for $400.
• Place a $1,000 deposit per seat toward 2009 full season tickets in any location other than the Upper Deck and receive the opportunity to purchase a postseason ticket package in the Outfield for $600

And, so on. It’s an aggressive strategy from a team that was still drawing crowds of under 20,000 in September despite being in first place, but it all seems a bit like extortion, eh? The WALKOFF WALK guys I think sum it up best:

Wow, a $2000 deposit on a $15000 investment guarantees me another $900 expenditure. I feel so honoured. Like I’ve been invited to the prom by a loan shark.

Stunts like the “if you want to buy tickets to see the Red Sox play in our town, you also have to buy tickets to see Pittsburgh and Washington” mumbo-jumbo that the Reds pulled this year are nothing new. But that’s an extra expenditure of maybe $100 to get what you want. The Rays are basically telling fans, “If you care about this team, you will give us many thousands of dollars to prove it,” despite this being the first year the team has ever been successful, and despite the team having the lowest payroll in the American League.

The Rays probably see the window of opportunity to really capitalize on this run is closing. If they complete their collapse tonight, enthusiasm will be crushed and the team will go right back to drawing 15,000 a game next year. The Marlins won the World Series twice and still couldn’t get people into their ballpark in months that didn’t start with “O.”