When Will Jeter get 3,000? Ticket Buyers say Friday is Day

New York Yankees' Derek Jeter watches his double off Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Justin Masterson in the eighth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, July 6, 2011, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Ron Kuntz)

If Yankees fans want a chance to witness Derek Jeter reach another historic milestone, his 3,000th hit, they’re going to have to dig deep into their pockets.

When Jeter finally accomplishes this breakthrough he will become the first New York Yankee in history to get 3,000 hits, and excitement has reached an all-time high among Yankees fans after the shortstop doubled to right field Wednesday night, moving him 3 hits closer to the unprecedented achievement.

After a brief six-game road trip (Yankees played three games at Citi Field against the Mets) the team returns to Yankee stadium for a four-game set against division rivals, Tampa Bay Rays, before the All-Star break next week.

Those who follow the Yankees expect the Captain to become the 28th member of the 3,000 hit club some time this weekend. And if you watch how consumers are spending their money, many fans expect Jeter to get the hit this Friday against the Rays.

“If you look at the prices you can kind of figure out [what] people think and when people think he’s actually going to hit the 3,000th,” said Ben Kessler, director of communications for Seat Geek—a ticket search engine that allows ticket buyers to analyze prices from a handful of secondary market websites in order to find the best price.

As of Thursday morning, tickets for Thursday’s game against the Rays were going for an average of $181 on the secondary market—224 percent of the face value price at Yankee Stadium.

That price jumps to $222 for Friday night’s game against the Rays. “It seems very likely that this would probably happen on Friday or Saturday,” after watching how consumers were buying tickets, Kessler told the Press.

Those estimates are far and away higher than your daily regular season game, which average around $70, Kessler said. The highest average for any game this season was May 14 against the Boston Red Sox, which averaged $116 on the secondary market, he said.

Although Yankees fans are used to seeing historic milestones—Jeter passed Lou Gehrig’s Yankees hit record in 2009 at the stadium, and Alex Rodriguez knocked his 600th home run at the stadium a year later—fans are eager to watch the shortstop continue to cement his legacy as a Yankees great.

Screen shot of Jeter wristband to be sold at shop.mlb.com

While many Yankees fans hold Jeter to a higher regard than Rodriguez, the average ticket price when he hit number 600 was just around $200, just $22 bucks less than Jeter’s pursuit.

Jeter’s chase for 3,000 was cut short to due a stint on the disabled list, and when he returned Monday in Cleveland, fans hit secondary market websites looking for the best price to witness history.

“We’ve seen kind of a change over time because there’s a lot of question [Wednesday] whether or not Jeter was actually going to play in Cleveland,” Kessler said.

Kessler said employees at Seat Geek saw prices “move around a lot” for Thursday’s upcoming game, because Jeter was still four hits away entering Wednesday’s game in Cleveland.

Before Jeter knocked a double to right field Wednesday night, prices were averaging $160 for Thursday’s game. Overnight, they went up $21, because “people were unsure” how many hits he would have coming into the first-game of the series against the Rays, Kessler said.

Meanwhile, store owners alongside River Avenue outside Yankees Stadium in the Bronx are preparing for the onslaught of fans looking to grab Derek Jeter 3,000-hit merchandise.

Pinstripe Collectible, one of those shops outside the stadium, will be selling all kinds of merchandise to commemorate the shortstop’s accomplishment. They will, however, have to wait for the Yankees Captain to reach 3,000 before they can start selling the many T-shirts, caps and silicon wristbands they already have made due to contractual obligations with the merchandise companies, said an employee who answered the phone at the store.

“It’s been pretty incredible,” Kessler said of watching the prices fluctuate.

All that’s left now is to see if ticket buyers can predict the future.