The Orioles announced a sellout for yesterday's home opener, but not before they sold roughly 1,000 tickets in the 18 hours before the game.
Orioles officials had been calling the game a sellout for weeks. But by last weekend, that appeared premature.
The team had held back 7,500 tickets. Those seats were put into a lottery for Orioles mini-plan holders, with winners offered the chance to buy two tickets.
When some of the winners turned down their seats, the Orioles found themselves with tickets to a previously sold-out game.
About 600 were sold by telephone Sunday night after the club announced they were available. The remaining 400 were sold yesterday morning before the game.
"They moved very quickly," said Joe Foss, Orioles vice chairman of business and finance.
The Orioles are predicting a season filled with sellouts. Club officials say they have sold about 85 percent of tickets for the abbreviated 72-game schedule at Camden Yards.
A few seats might become available for many of those games when the team begins a new, more liberal ticket-exchange policy.
That policy, which Foss said could be announced this week, is expected to allow fans to return their tickets to a location at the ballpark. That could result in small numbers of tickets being available on game days, even for so-called sellouts.
