After One Inning, Sellout Streak Ends On My Couch

Fenway Park’s 820 game sellout streak ended yesterday. The sellout streak on my couch, capacity two, ended after one inning on opening day, when my wife remembered that she doesn’t derive any pleasure from watching Mets games on TV, and asked if I could mute the volume while she read The New York Times on her computer.

The one-inning sellout marked a breakthrough in couch attendance, which has held steady at 1 ever since last June, when I insisted that certainly watching the end of Johan Santana’s potential no-hitter — the first in Mets history — would be interesting even to a non-baseball fan.

The couch was at capacity for approximately three minutes until it was decided that using the bathroom would be a more interesting way for one of the two people in attendance to spend her time. She did not return to the couch. The short, three-minute sellout streak was over.

And while the occupant of row one, seat left, has allowed the couch’s Mad Men Watching Sellout Streak to reach [however many episodes there have been of Mad Men] despite his initial lack of interest and propensity to fall asleep while watching, somehow the Mets game never seems to be given that same chance. Yes, now I realize Mad Men is good, and, no, I admit the Mets will never be good, but still…

A new sellout streak is expected to start (and end) this Sunday, and last approximately the length of one Mad Men commercial break, unless we don’t start watching Mad Men until late, and then we’ll just fast forward through the breaks. The “following the game on the ESPN app on my iPhone while we watch something else” streak will remain strong.