Rays ask MLB to refund costs of non-refundable plane tickets

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Tampa Bay Rays have made an unusual request to Major League Baseball today, asking Bud Selig if they can have the cost of 50 non-refundable plane tickets returned to them by the league.

“Due to the fact that unforeseen circumstances are keeping us in Philadelphia for two more days than we had originally expected, we are asking the league to refund the costs of 50 plane tickets from Philadelphia to Tampa,” said Rays principal owner Stuart Steinberg. “Additionally, we are asking the league to reimburse us for an extra two nights at the hotel for all 50 personnel. This is due to the fact that the unusual scheduling of the league and their obvious desire to force us to spend additional money has required us to cancel a series of plane tickets and reserve additional hotel rooms with minimal notice.”

Selig was bemused by the Rays’ request.

“It’s sort of an unusual request,” Selig said. “Generally in the major leagues, teams just pay for their own hotel rooms and travel. So this is different, certainly. We’ll take it under advisement. I’m sort of not sure why they didn’t just get refundable plane tickets, or even their own plane. I mean, they are in the World Series.”

“Yeah, we are in the World Series,” fired back Steinberg. “And the reason for that is that we don’t go throwing around money left and right. Sure, most teams pay a premium for nice plane tickets that you can refund anytime. We don’t. What we do is buy our tickets on Priceline.com. By connecting through Cincinnati, we were able to fly the whole team to Philly and back for an average price of just $137.39 per ticket. But, of course, that relied on us being able to be at the airport by 12:31 am on Tuesday, right after Monday night’s game. Which didn’t happen, thanks to Bud.”

Selig said he’ll render a decision on the Rays’ situation, but that this is not the first time that they’ve butted heads over money.

“They’re always trying to get us to pay for stuff,” Selig said. “Last year they submitted an invoice for $437 in broken wooden bats, under the pretense that by encouraging us to have fans at our games, their players were swinging too hard and thus breaking too many bats. We paid that one, though.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!