During the fourth inning of Wednesday night’s game, Jerad Head and Justin Bloxom hit back-to-back home runs to cut into Reading’s lead over the Senators. On the scoreboard it meant two runs, but in the stands it meant something much better. As part of the Gazebo Room Back-to-Back Home Run Inning, one lucky fan was going to win five thousand dollars.

A seat was selected at random from all of the tickets sold and Andree announced the winning location over the PA system, “Section 207, Row 6, Seat 5.”

All eyes in the ballpark scanned towards Section 207 to find the lucky fan, but instead it was just an empty green seat. Through their ticketing system, the Senators’ staff determined that the person who had purchased that ticket never made it to the ballpark since it was never scanned at the gate.

Plan B was hatched where everyone still in attendance would have the opportunity to win the $5000 in a one-time random drawing. Fans just needed to drop off their ticket stub or enter their seat location on a piece of paper and a winner would be drawn at the end of the seventh inning.

After Head struck out swinging, Bob Hauer brought the raffle drum out onto the field and gave it a couple of vigorous turns to mix up the entries. He had a kid blindly stick his hand into the drum and pull out the winning seat location. ..Section 207, Row 1, Seat 11. Once again, the seat was empty but the lucky fan was indeed here just up on the third-base boardwalk.

If you’re reading this and you had the ticket with the original winning seat location, first of all “Doh!”, secondly bring it with you next time you’re at the ballpark and come find me on press row. I can’t match the $5000 but I can guarantee a bag of peanuts, a small bottle of water, and a free program for the homestand (estimated value for the IRS is $5) in exchange for hearing how it feels to lose five grand.