There's no Raising Prices of Tickets in Baseball!

According to boston.com, all but four teams raised prices last year.

Not this year. For the first time since 1994, the Red Sox will not be raising ticket prices. This coming from a team that has (per the NY Times) drawn:

469 consecutive home sellouts, drew three million fans last season, a home attendance record. Lucchino said that the team could have raised ticket prices this season but that its analysis of focus group research, fan feedback and the economy led to the freeze.

Why? It's the economy stupid. Unfortunately (pretend I'm saying that as sarcastically as possible), the Yankees don't have that same flexibility in this global slowdown. Why? Because:

the Yankees are building a $1.3 billion stadium scheduled to open in April. Although the team has said that the prices for 25,000 seats would not be increased over 2008 levels, a considerable number of tickets, especially the premium ones, will cost much more. Some tickets, fans have said, have soared from $220 in the current stadium to $650 for the equivalent locations in the new one.

Not to mention the Yankees $209.1 million payroll they need to cover. We'll see how many people actually fork over that cash when the clearly better New York baseball team isn't even in Manhattan. According to the Boston Herald the Yankees are indeed having some trouble:

Seven luxury boxes down the foul lines priced at $600,000 remain available for the 2009 season, the first at the new Yankee Stadium. The team still had seven available in August, too.

Between the economy, new stadium, and on the cusp Mets, maybe we'll finally have the parity in baseball that most of us have been clamoring for. In the meanwhile, what's the over / under on the Detroit Tigers maintaining that 30% ticket price hike?