Troy Glaus and I, in our cool shades, ask, "What's the deal?"

Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus is as clueless as I am.

What's the deal with ticket distribution these days? I paid $40 for two "good" seats at Space Coast Stadium to see a spring training game. But apparently, they weren't as good as I thought.

My cousin, who came from Orlando, and I watched the Washington Nationals beat the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 on Monday in Viera.

We had tickets for the sixth row near third base. When we found the seats, we sat down, and I said, "Wow, these are pretty good seats."

When I bought them, I asked the ticket office attendant for the "best seats available." But by the seventh inning, when I saw hundreds of empty seats behind home plate, I began to think I didn't get the "best available."

So my cousin Danny and I decided we needed an upgrade. We moved to the third row behind home plate. Only two others were in the row. We sat down. "Wow, these are pretty good seats," I said. We were golden.

Then an old man, who has the pleasure of seasonal employment with the Nationals, walked down the aisle and asked us, "Are you with the Nationals?"

We said, "Yeah, we're with the Nationals." But he wanted to see a team-issued badge, not a display of team loyalty. Depends on what the definition of "with" is, I guess.

So, back to our original seats we went. We sat down, and I said, "Wow, these are pretty good seats."

Young kid Elijah Dukes trots around the bases after hitting one outta the ballpark for the Nats.

Albert Pujols takes his hat off to Dukes. I blatantly pronounced the silent "J" when I said his name among Cards fans. We sat behind the Cards' dugout, so what was I expecting?

Former Red Sox slugger Wily Mo Pena displays how high the ball can be hit, then caught.

My cousin Danny lets his coolness look at him.

After the sun cooked us for a while, the skies turned very dark, obviously mad that we were forced from our second pair of great seats.

The Boys of Spring home