April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, asked for court approval to auction off New York Mets season tickets held by the defunct money-management firm.

The tickets for the baseball team have a face value of about $60,750, according to a filing yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Trustee Irving Picard plans to auction the seats on EBay, according to the filing.

“Because the New York Mets’ season has already started, the trustee must sell the tickets as quickly as possible to maximize the possible recovery,” Picard’s attorneys at Baker & Hostetler said in the filing.

The Madoff firm had two Delta Club Platinum season tickets for the Mets, for seats directly behind home plate, the face value of which ranges from $295 to $695 per ticket depending on how the club classifies the games. The total face value was $80,190 for the season.

Because season ticket-holder rights to purchase playoff seats and tickets for subsequent years wouldn’t transfer if those tickets were sold, Picard reached an agreement with the Mets to swap them for Delta Club Gold tickets valued at $60,750. The gold seats are “just a few sections over and few rows behind” the platinum seats and the Mets agreed to refund the $19,440 difference and make an opening bid in the auction of half the tickets’ face value, according to court papers.

‘More Marketable’

“While the tickets are still for excellent and exclusive seats, it is the view of the trustee that the less expensive tickets will be more marketable, especially given the current economic environment,” according to the filing.

Delta Club Platinum seats are located in the first row behind home plate and Delta Club Gold seats are just behind them, according to the Mets’ Web site.

At Citi Field, the Mets’ new $800 million stadium, there are five restaurants, 54 luxury suites, and room for 42,000 fans. Seats are closer to the field than they were at Shea Stadium, the Mets’ former home.

Picard will sell tickets for April games individually and the remaining games on the season ticket plan will be sold to the highest bidder through an auction starting in mid-April, Picard said in a statement. He asked that a hearing be held April 14 to approve the auction.

The Mets opened their Major League Baseball season on April 6 with a 2-1 road victory over the Cincinnati Reds. Their first regular-season game at Citi Field is April 13 against the San Diego Padres.

Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty March 12 to defrauding investors by using money from new ones to pay off old ones in a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Picard, a lawyer with Baker & Hostetler LLP in New York, has recovered about $1 billion for Madoff investors. Yesterday, he won court approval to auction off the firm’s market-making operation.

The case is Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 08-01789, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Scinta in New York at cscinta@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 8, 2009 00:01 EDT