You're Dan Duquette, former Red Sox general manager. You've come across the Boston equivalent of a Wonka Golden Ticket, in the form of two tickets to the 2004 World Series. At the same time, you're trying to nice-nice your friend James Ruberto, the mayor of Pittsfield, because you'd like to make a deal to put a minor league team in his city.

Now, you have many options here. Sell the tickets and take the mayor out for a steak. Take the mayor to the game. Go to the game yourself and take the mayor out for steak after the Series (that would be our choice). Or sell the mayor the tickets for face value. Which is what Duquette did, and now he's going to be hauled before the Ethics Commission because he didn't charge the mayor the Internet going rate ($600+ apiece, instead of the $190 face value).

But, wait, isn't charging $600 for those tickets illegal? Despite the tangled efforts of online ticket scalpers and friends of Sal DiMasi, the 1924 law remains on the books that tickets can't be resold for more than $2.00 over face value, and if you're not licensed by the state, even $2.00 may be an illegal markup. If Duquette had put them online or sold them to Ruberto at Internet prices, he might run the risk of being hauled before someone with more clout than the Ethics Commission.

Duquette's statement sounds rational to us: "To suggest that a ticket becomes a gift to a public official because its sale price was based on a MLB directive (and state anti-scalping law) rather than on anecdotal evidence about its potential value on eBay and Craig's List seems to me, to stretch Law 268 well beyond its intended reach, " he told the Globe.

The Mayor's attorney, Leonard H. Cohen, said Ruberto just jumped at the chance to go see the World Series. Sounds so reasonable to us, we don't even have a quip about the fact that the mayor's lawyer is named Leonard Cohen.

Photo by AntyDiluvian, from Flickr photos tagged "Bostonist".