(good seats still available. Bad ones, too)

The Mets are currently scoreless against the Nationals’ John Lannan, whose 1981 killing served as inspiration for the Meatmen’s “One Down, Three To Go”. From the looks of things on MLB.TV, Citi Field is mostly empty, a development that could only be of interest to the most culturally unaware of New Yorkers. Or, if you prefer, New York Times sports editor Tom Jolly, who finds the cheap & easy availability of Mets tickets more worthy of coverage than what actually happened during a Major League baseball game. Jerry Manuel’s thoughts on the performance of Mike Pelfrey were considered surplus to requirements, though the Times’ David Waldstein did manage to get the manager to say œit™s a little too intimate, right now. We like the bigger crowds. You can hear them too clearly” regarding last night’s turnout.

One voice he could not hear was that of Michelle Velasquez, a New Jersey resident who was given four tickets ($100 each) to Friday night™s game, in addition to an $18 parking pass. She and her husband had plans with another couple. Sure, they could have all come to the game, but instead they decided on dinner in Manhattan. Velasquez tried to sell the tickets and the pass for $200 on Craigslist, but as of 5 p.m. she had not come close to getting rid of them.

œI got two calls, she told a reporter who responded to her ad. œOne from a guy who was going to buy them but backed out, and you.

One who did not back out was Anthony Rasile, a court clerk from Howard Beach, Queens. Although a Yankee fan, Rasile received free tickets from his daughter and thought it would be a chance to get his first look at Citi Field. He said he liked certain aspects of the new park a lot.

œI noticed the beers are $2.50 cheaper than at Yankee Stadium, he said.

But for 18-year-old Matt Bass, the game itself, not a cold beverage, was a welcome diversion. A week ago, Bass, a Westchester resident, heard these dreaded words from his girlfriend of a year: œIt™s not working out. So his father, his uncle and a cousin bought tickets and took him out to the ballgame.

Dressed in a black No. 57 Johan Santana shirt, the melancholy Bass stood at the railing behind the field-level seats behind third base before the game and motioned to the Mets™ dugout. œThey™re killing me, he said.

It’s hard to decide which is more desperate, adding insult to injury for Mr. Bass (dumped…and a Mets fan) or the notion of Waldstein being encouraged to harass women via Craigslist. Parking pass or not, however, anyone asking $50 per ticket to see a ballgame played between two teams who are combined 67 games under .500 oughta be institutionalized or indicted. But enough about Fred and Jeff Wilpon, Ms. Velazquez seems a bit out of touch, too.