On Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m., I telephoned the number to call for information about getting tickets to the six professional baseball games involving the American League's New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Tokyo Dome from March 28-31.

As expected, I got a recording. A woman's voice, speaking in Japanese only, told me I had reached the CN Play Guide Special Events number and went on to let me know the dates of concerts in Koriyama and Morioka in Tohoku, northern Japan, in April.

Then I was invited to start pushing "1" for this, "2" for that, or just push "sharp" if I needed more help. But, when I pushed the tick-tack-toe sign on my phone dialer, the original message was repeated. I took this to mean the baseball tickets were sold out but took a walk downtown to consult the Ticket Pia counter at my local JR train station where a young lady said, "The tickets for all the games involving the Yankees (exhibitions against the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers and two regular season encounters with the Devil Rays) are sold out. But we still have tickets for the Devil Rays-Giants and Devil Rays-Tigers (pre-season) games."