SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 04/02/2006 -- The first pitch of the 2006 Major League Baseball season will be thrown tonight as the World Champion Chicago White Sox host the Cleveland Indians before a sellout crowd. Many fans that weren't able to get a seat at the box office turned to online ticket marketplace StubHub. On an average, those fans paid $186 per ticket to see the White Sox take the field as defending champions for the first time since 1918. The remainder of the league will play their home openers throughout the next ten days and StubHub has tracked which opening day/night games baseball fans are paying the most to see.

Leading the league by a considerable margin are the St. Louis Cardinals at $260 per ticket on average. The team enters 2006 primed to defend their NL Central crown and hungry for a World Series title. Newly rebuilt Busch Stadium has created huge draw in the salivating St. Louis baseball market. Following the Cardinals are the aforementioned White Sox, whose home opener sales have nearly doubled those of their in-town neighbors, the Chicago Cubs, who play on Friday. The top three is rounded out by the ever-popular Boston Red Sox. Even with newly added seats, Fenway Park will be packed to capacity once again and Opening Day is always a Beantown tradition.

The rest of the top ten is populated by some of baseball's marquee teams with the Yankees, Cubs, Angels, Mets, Dodgers, Giants and A's rounding out the list respectively. Conspicuously absent however are the defending National League champion Houston Astros, whose opening day tickets were selling for just $56 on average as of Sunday.

"Opening Day is normally the most popular game of any team's season. The demand for this traditional day regularly pushes the value of these tickets to greater heights. Fans who find the games sold out at the box office come to the StubHub marketplace to get the tickets they need to the games they want," said Jeff Fluhr, founder and CEO of StubHub. "Baseball fans love to look at numbers and StubHub's FanStats can share the data of what major league games are in the highest demand"

STUBHUB TOP-10 2006 OPENING DAY(NIGHT) MLB GAMES

1. St. Louis Cardinals (vs. Brewers) - 4/10 $263
2. Chicago White Sox (vs. Indians) - 4/2 $186
3. Boston Red Sox (vs. Blue Jays) - 4/11 $160
4. New York Yankees (vs. Royals) - 4/11 $112
5. Chicago Cubs (vs. Cardinals) - 4/7 $105
6. Los Angeles Angels (vs. Yankees) - 4/7 $95
7. New York Mets (vs. Nationals) - 4/3 $94
8. Los Angeles Dodgers (vs. Braves) - 4/3 $88
9. San Francisco Giants (vs. Braves) - 4/6 $86
10. Oakland A's (vs. Yankees) - 4/3 $70

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