Per an email response from the Cubs today: "The waiting list has not been updated to reflect renewals" in this off season.

There was some discussion on this topic, where some folks thought they had moved up or down on the list since October, so thought I'd pass it on. I track my number enough to know that it has not changed since at least July 2009.

Best of luck in all your ticketing endeavors.

This seems like a mis-read of the demand that's out there. The Cubs easily could command something approaching $300 per ticket for the best ~71 tickets behind the plate (the ones not already priced there), without the club and lost suite revenue. Instead, to avoid the PR hit (I guess?) they've added a ticket category of mediocre seats at sky high prices rather than raise existing seats to market price.

The Cubs seem to have derived this idea from the Yankees and Mets, who both added similar expensive, all you can eat clubs at the suite level way down the lines in their new stadiums.

They both sat largely empty for most of the year.

Since the Cubs have announced that they will create 700 new season tickets from former Tribune seats, thought I'd check the progress of the season ticket waiting list.

It took the Cubs a long time to update the numbers, but from last December to now, they have cleared 94 spots (I went from 3,561 to 3.454). That's pretty impressive -- in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Cubs cleared less than 100 customers from the waiting list.

Given that context, I wouldn't expect many more than 700 to clear this year. Prices in the secondary market and the slow moving list clearly indicate that season ticket holders in financial distress are choosing to make up for shortfalls by selling some (or all) of their tickets in the secondary market rather than abandon their tickets altogether.

From Paul Sullivan's game article:

"He hit it in our bullpen, and [Johnson] caught it," Dempster said. "I've been playing 15 years of professional baseball now, and he's made the two best catches while I've been pitching. I'll have to buy him a [burger] on the way home."

I actually make myself laugh thinking about all the possible un-printable words that may have been said there other than burger...

X*Y=Z

X = The Red Sox charge $100 per year to remain on their season ticket waiting list.

Y = The Cubs have a season ticket waiting list of over 100,000 people.

Z = The difference between an average player at a position and the best player in the game.

Why not do this? Hasn't the Fan-friendly-pricing Train already left the station? The Cubs should take all the things they're eventually going to do (like this), and just go ahead and do them today.