Rockies suspend World Series ticket sales after computer crash

Associated
Press- The Colorado Rockies suspended World Series ticket sales Monday after
overwhelming demand crashed their computer system.

“Right
now we’re shutting the system down,” club spokesman Jay Alves announced
outside Coors Field, drawing boos from fans. “We expect to be online at
some point.”

The
Rockies put as many as 60,000 tickets up for sale online
only, and team officials said their computers were ready to handle the expected
crush. But two hours after tickets went on sale, many fans reported they could
not get access to the ticket-sales Web site.

Officials
with the
Rockies and Major League Baseball did
not immediately return calls.

KCNC-TV in

Denver reported
that the company that runs the ticket-sales computers, Paciolan, Inc. had an
unspecified problem. Paciolan officials did not immediately return a call to
The Associated Press.

About 20
people lined up in near-freezing temperatures outside the Denver Public Library
before it opened in hopes of using public-access computers to score tickets.

“If
you can’t get tickets here, you’re going to have to pay $200, $300 above face
value,” said Clayton McLeod, a 26-year-old heavy-machine operator who took the
day off to try to get seats.

McLeod
said he has Internet access from his apartment building but thought the
library’s computers might be faster. His mother, father, uncle and girlfriend
were trying to buy tickets from other computers, he said.

His boss,
also a
Rockies fan, agreed to give him the day
off and asked McLeod to get tickets for him, too.

“We’ll
see how many I’ll get,” McLeod said.

The
Rockies limited sales to four per person per game.

The Series
opens in

Boston
with games on Wednesday and Thursday. Games 3 and 4 will be on Saturday and
Sunday in

Denver.
If there is a Game 5, it will be played Monday in

Denver.

Coors
Field seats more than 50,000, but about 30,000 spots per game are allotted to
season-ticket holders, the two teams and Major League Baseball.

Season-ticket
holders got a chance to buy their tickets last weekend. Prices range from $65
to $250.

Tickets
originally were to be sold at Coors Field and Rockies’ Dugout Stores in the

Denver area, as well as
online. The team announced Wednesday all sales would be online, saying that
would be more fair.