A female baseball fan has been charged after allegedly offering her body in exchange for sought-after tickets to the World Series.

Susan Finkelstein, 43, from Philadelphia, was arrested after meeting an undercover policeman in a suburban bar with the intention, it is claimed, of exchanging sex for admission to a finals game between her beloved Phillies and the New York Yankees.

It follows an advert placed on internet site Craigslist which her lawyer admits may have included a couple of double entendres but fell way short of prostitution.

William Brennan described his client as "a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever".

As to the advert he said: "If someone read into that posting a sexual connotation, that's on them. There's no overt sexual reference."

The online ad led to a rendezvous between Finkelstein and an undercover police officer. Over a few beers she told the man that she needed two tickets, one for herself and one for her husband.

Before prices were discussed she was arrested by several officers on a nearby table and subsequently charged with the misdemeanour charge of promoting prostitution.

Finkelstein has protested that this was not what she intended. "I was hoping to get cheap tickets," she told local station WPVI-TV, adding: "Maybe meet someone, and talk, and bat my eyelashes and maybe get some tickets."

She later explained: "I didn't do anything wrong, so I'm not embarrassed about my actions. I'm embarrassed about how I was arrested." But the baseball fan appeared to regret placing the ad. "It definitely wasn't worth all this - turmoil and anxiety," Finkelstein said.

But there was a silver lining for the Phillies fan. A local radio station and car dealer took pity on her plight, offering a pair of tickets for a weekend game in the process.