No fever, but good tickets available

During the years of the Jacobs Field sellout streak, the Indians would put the next season's tickets on sale over Thanksgiving weekend and celebrate a season sellout by mid-December.
Those were the days for the Tribe's marketing department. All they had to do was announce a ticket sale date and watch TicketMaster employees scramble.
Back when baseball fans had to make their ticket choices long before they knew what their summer schedules would be, some longed for the day when they could stroll up to The Jake's box office an hour before game time and purchase a decent seat.
It looks as if that day may have arrived, at least on some game days this season.
Surfing through the Indians' website Thursday, we discovered that not even the home opener, April 8 against the Minnesota Twins, is sold out.
Two tickets in Section 559 (upper deck third base side) came up on our search for the best two available seats for the Indians' first home game of 2002.
More choices: Choices get a lot better after April 8. Every game we checked had lower box seats available in Section 175 down the left-field line near the corner. (We suspect these seats were reserved for season-ticket sales that never materialized and recently have been released to the general public).
We tried the series with the New York Mets (June 7-9), Arizona Diamondbacks (June 28-30), New York Yankees (July 11-14 and July 23-24), Oakland Athletics (Aug. 19-22), Seattle Mariners (Aug. 23-25) and Boston Red Sox (Aug. 30-Sept. 1).
All, as of Thursday, had lower-deck seats available, not to mention bleachers and upper-deck.
Now that doesn't mean those games won't be sold out by the time summer arrives. In fact, those lower-deck seats already may be gone.
But it's obvious that the Indians fever that has fanned passionate flames in downtown Cleveland since 1994 has cooled.
The Tribe's trimmed payroll and the departure of future Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar and slugger Juan Gonzalez are the reasons.
Last year's Indians boasted Alomar, Gonzalez and Jim Thome as the usual 3-4-5 hitters. This year's projected lineup sees Ellis Burks, Thome and Travis Fryman in those spots. Burks often hit sixth and Fryman seventh last season.
The Tribe's hopes for a decent season rest on the young arms of starting pitchers Bartolo Colon, C.C. Sabathia, Danys Baez and Ryan Drese. And we all know good pitching doesn't sell tickets the way home runs do.
If you've never sat in the lower level at Jacobs Field, here's your chance.
Plenty of seats: Over in Pittsburgh, good tickets are plentiful (approximately 40 percent of last year's season-ticket holders did not renew after the Pirates' 62-100 season).
The Bucs' April 8 home opener (at 1:30 p.m. versus the Cincinnati Reds) at PNC Park has plenty of $10 upper-deck grandstand tickets available.
If you have money to spare and want to feel like royalty, the Pirates have Home Plate Dugout seats available, for "only" $185, for the April 12 game against the Chicago Cubs (Sammy Sosa and fireworks). That game also has plenty of $55 seats in the club level in the lower part of the upper-deck.
Want a Willie Stargell bobblehead doll? For $27, you'll receive one plus an infield box seat in Section 114 between home plate and first base if you attend the April 10 game.
For summer weekend games, the better affordable seats are hard to find. But for the SkyBlast Fireworks game on June 8 versus the Milwaukee Brewers, there are plenty of upper-deck choices ($16 and lower).
And for Youngstown-Warren Community Night on July 19 (St. Louis Cardinals), lower box seats not far from third base are available ($26).
XTom Williams covers Major League Baseball for The Vindicator. Write him at williams@vindy.com.