Dodger single-game tickets go on sale Saturday

Los Angeles Dodgers single-game tickets will go on sale Saturday, with prices increased for nearly 35 percent of seats at Dodger Stadium for all games, and the first additional charge for tickets for Friday and Saturday games.

The single-game ticket sales will begin at 10 a.m. at Dodger Stadium, online at www.dodgers.com, Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (866) Dodgers.

Fans wishing to purchase tickets at Dodger Stadium can enter via the Sunset Gate as early as 8 a.m. and receive numbered wristbands until a starting number is randomly selected at 8:45 a.m. There is no advantage to arriving before 8 a.m.

The person with the selected number will have the first opportunity to purchase tickets at 10 a.m. and the remainder of the group will be served in numerical sequence.

Fans arriving after 8:45 a.m. will receive a different color wristband and that group will be able to buy tickets after the first group.

There is a limit to four tickets per person for the Dodgers' April 13 home opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Opening Day tickets customarily sell out within a half-hour of going on sale.

The bulk of the 56,000 tickets for Opening Day are sold through season and partial-season ticket plans and will continue to be available after Saturday through those plans.

Individual game tickets will not be sold for the Dodgers' June 25-27 interleague series against the World Series champion New York Yankees so the team can have a sufficient supply of tickets for purchasers of full and partial season-ticket plans, Josh Rawitch, the team's vice president of communications, told a local wire service.

All fans buying at least one ticket at Dodger Stadium Saturday will receive two free tickets to the Dodgers exhibition home opener against the Cleveland Indians April 1.

Former Dodgers Ron Cey and Lou Johnson will pose for pictures and sign autographs from 10-11 a.m. Saturday at Dodger Stadium. Dodger merchandise will be on sale and Dodger Dogs will be available for $2.

Tickets for Friday and Saturday games ordered in advance will cost $2 or $3 more than those played the rest of the week in what the team described as a variable pricing component that "has become increasingly popular in sports and entertainment."

The Dodgers are the last team in the Los Angeles market to use variable pricing, according to Rawitch, who said the increases in ticket prices are the result of rising business costs.

The price increases average less than 75 cents per ticket or 2.5 percent, Rawitch said. Prices will remain the same or be lowered for more than 65 percent of seats purchased in advance for Sunday through Thursday games.

The Dodgers did not increase single-game ticket prices following the 2008 season and season ticket prices remain at their 2008 levels.

"Despite the fact that business costs continue to go up from year to year, we've kept season ticket prices flat for two years running, we've maintained the same parking price for four years in a row and we are keeping concession prices the same again in 2010," Rawitch said.

The ticket price increases have no connection to the divorce of owner Frank McCourt and Jamie McCourt, the team's former chief executive officer, Rawitch said.