The 71 new season tickets available this year at Wrigley Field--the "CBOE Seats" named for the Chicago Board Options Exchange, their official sponsor--went up for auction on Monday and will remain so until March 13th.

The seats, which will be situated just past the Cubs dugout in what used to be the photographers pit, have been parceled out into one group of five, 12 groups of four, and nine pairs.

At this writing, a total of ten bids have been offered. The highest is a $75,000 offer for a group of four. I'll spare you the math: that works out to $18,750 per season ticket; a little more than $264 per seat, per game; approximately $263 more than my buddies and I used to pay, per seat, per game, to get into Wrigley Field to see the Cubs when we were kids, which has more than a little to do with the fact that we grew up loving the team and continue to do so even in our dotage.

In case you're wondering, yes, of course I'm going to make a bid. I have my eyes on Seats 1, 2, 3, and 4 in Row B, which have yet to draw any interest. Assuming those seats continue to go unnoticed by other bidders, my strategy is to wait until the last 10 or 15 seconds before the auction closes, then slip a $40 bid in just under the wire.

It worked with that Russian-made 16mm movie camera I bought six years ago on eBay, and I don't see why it shouldn't work just as well for me this time around.