Hal (not his real name) is black, nondescript, and 31. When I met him outside Yankee Stadium, he wore a torn Steeler T-shirt and jeans. Hal is the quintessential exponent of free-market economics. Or, as the legal system would have it, black-market economics. Reluctant to speak at first, Hal soon became almost voluble. Throughout our conversation he was on the lookout for police—uniformed and undercover. Hal enjoys his trade. He should: it’s a sweet gig.
It’s like investin’ in the stock market. All depends on how good the game gonna be. Also the weather plays a big part. I eat tickets at least two times a week. On a night like this people got extra—I only buy good seats. For baseball, on a Sunday you can sell two hundred tickets easy. Most of the time when I buy seats in advance, I sell ’em over the phone to my regular customers. Building up a clientele is important. You get ten customers that go to forty games a year. You figure you charge them $30 a ticket—that’s $12,000 a year right there.
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