Scalpers striking out with customers, cops

No, they probably don't need tickets.

On game days, you see them prowling the streets outside Dodger Stadium, flashing more signs than a third-base coach, their hand-scrawled scraps of cardboard reading, "I need tickets."

But what they really need is to scalp tickets -- and not get arrested in the process. The signs are a code to attract potential buyers, without announcing an intention to violate the law.

Sunday's National League Championship Series matchup of the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies brought the curbside ticket merchants out in droves, along with the police officers whose pursuit of them makes this a cat-and-mouse form of commerce.

The black-market peddlers of Dodger blue also had to be mindful of retirement-age citizens whom the authorities enlist to pose as customers, setting up the scalpers for a bust.

"Last season, the cops sent some old people after me," said Cory Robertson, 36, who was scalping outside the stadium's Elysian Park Avenue gate Sunday, dressed in a Kirk Gibson jersey. "I sold them two tickets, and the cops came from everywhere. I thought it was a drug raid. . . . They took me to jail."

Under most circumstances, state and local laws prohibit scalping at entertainment venues or any public place. Violations are a misdemeanor.

"The problem with this is that it's a big nuisance," said Los Angeles Police Department Capt. William Murphy, referring in part to ticket hustlers who dash in and out of stadium traffic and descend on game-goers like panhandlers.

Although scalpers often buy tickets on the street with the aim of immediately reselling them at a profit, Murphy said the "need tickets" signs are designed mainly to "get people into conversations."

"The scalpers are hoping someone will come up who wants a ticket," he said. "They think that by putting that sign up, they're not violating anything."

Some scalpers own lower-tier resale agencies that obtain tickets from a larger broker and hawk them on commission, the captain added. Others are casual entrepreneurs who pick up tickets from the box office and online services.

Both types converged Sunday at the gate above Sunset Boulevard, where their numbers approached two dozen an hour before game time. Most carried the dog-eared signs, and many had been there since early morning. Sales were slow.

"If I didn't have regular customers, I'd be in big trouble," said Teddy Damon, 52, who owns a small ticket agency. He had been unable to unload his $8,000 worth of tickets at the office.