Sweet Caroline! How come I can't get tickets to a Neil Diamond concert?

Not that we're the biggest Neil Diamond fans on the face of the earth, but my sisters, our friend Shelly, and I decided that it would be a hoot to go to Neil's concert in Fenway Park. After all, he is the guy who sang so many of the great windows-open, full-throated sing-along oldies of our youth.

Fenway Park, on a "hot August night, when you almost bet you could hear yourself sweat, he comes in." Where the "he" that comes in is not Love Brother Love, but is Love Brother Love's composer. Singing along with that? Not to mention "she got a way to move me, Ch-er-ie". And, of course, the especially meaningful and rousing Sweet Caroline, which since the dawn of the Golden Era in Red Sox baseball, has been the anthem sung between the top and bottom of the eighth innings.

Sitting in the stands at Fenway for all that? It sure has a way to move me, alright.

So, I got on the American Express pre-sale, on TicketMaster - the ticket source for this concert - to see if I could get four of the $44.50 tickets.

No dice.

So I tried to worm into the Friends of Neil Diamond pre-sale ticket purchase. Although I'm no FOND, my sister was cannily able to predict that the password would be "caroline" (a secret that was also "revealed" on Craig's List before those tickets went on sale).

Again, no dice.

But how remarkable it was that, those $44.50 tickets - which, of course, were already up to over $60/per once the convenience and handling and other nonsense fees had been larded on - that were instantly unavailable, were instantly available at more than twice that price - not via Craig's List scalpers who'd managed to grab a few pairs. But on TicketMaster's "sister" ticket site, "TicketExchange."

Hmmmmm.

I don't know the exact relationship between Master and Exchange, but I'm guessing it's a fairly cozy one.

When it comes to ticket scalping, I'm actually a big free market proponent.

If I have tickets that someone else wants, let 'em pay.

But I reserve my approval of scalping for individuals - not for ticket services.

I understand that whoever's promoting an entertainment or sporting event just wants to sell-out, and are thus somewhat indifferent to whether they sell-out to a bunch of individuals, or to a bunch of ticket agencies. But I do wonder what miniscule proportion of tickets is even made available to non-brokers. It sure doesn't seem like there are very many.

For the event promoters, of course, the beauty of the ticket brokers is that they reduce their risk. The ticket agencies assume that risk - they're stuck with the tickets if no one wants them. And they also get the upside - and what an upside it is, sky-high is the limit. A nano-second after failing to get Red Sox tickets online - yet again - tickets were available from agencies for 10x the face value, and more. At least the Neil Diamond ticket inflation was more modest.

With so many tickets allocated to the ticket agencies to begin with, it's really exasperating to be a fan trying to get a hold of a few tickets.

It's especially irksome when you have to keep re-entering those difficult-to-read codes that are supposedly there to prevent rapacious ticket grabbers from using robots to buy all the tickets.

So I tediously type in those number/letter combos in the grid - is that a "c" or an "e"? a "7" or a "1" - only to find that, alas, I am not worthy of buying a ticket.

Unless I'm willing to pay 3 times the face value.

And this for a concert - Neil Diamond at Fenway - which, rumor has it, is not selling out.

Let's face it, how many people are there willing to fork over more than $100 to see Neil Diamond?

It's not like he's Bruce Springsteen, or Paul Simon, or someone else of that caliber. To me, he's halfway between these guys and the oldies reviews that come around for free concerts in City Hall Plaza and down at the Hatch Shell on the Charles every summer.

My sister Trish advises patience.

Her belief is that, come August, more of the $44.50 tickets will miraculously appear.

Meanwhile, in a city where poor schnooks with an extra ticket to sell are routinely busted for some freelance gouging at the door, ticket brokers can jack up their prices to whatever they want.

What a business!