I stumbled upon a couple of fascinating pieces of data while strolling through the Baseball Reference web site a couple of days ago. And the data leads me to the conclusion that maybe I need to back off my bashing of Rays fans just a tad.
BASEBALL REFERENCE WEB SITE:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/
I was trying to think of when was the last time a team with a similar record and history of futility as the Rays rose up to compete at the World Series level in a similarly surprising fashion.
The best I could come up with was the 1969 Miracle Mets, a team I witnessed grow up before my eyes as a youth growing up in New Jersey.
And I started to wonder what the team attendance figures were, THEN and NOW.
The 2008 Rays drew 1,811,986 fans according to the site.
By comparison, the 1969 Mets, in the New York market, drew 2,175,373. TOTAL. And they were FIRST in attendance in the National League!!!!
The Yankees drew only 1,067,996 the same year, they were basically a .500 team. The Orioles, who won the division and also played in the 1969 World Series, drew 1,062,069.
The 1970 Cincinnati Reds, THE BIG RED MACHINE, drew 1,803,568 the next year, with a 102-60 record.
The 1972 Reds drew only 1,611,459 as a divisional winner. The 1973 division winning Mets drew only 1,912,390 for a team that was not expected to compete for a title.
It wasn't until the 1980's that we began to see attendance figures really swell for some of these division winners and cross the 2 million mark. The 1981 Dodgers won with 2,381,292 and the 1986 Mets drew 2,767,601.
So 1.8 million fans is not too bad for the Rays and the Tampa Bay community to hang their hat on. Perhaps if the infamous "Contraction List" comes back into vogue among the ownership, the Rays will not be on it. We'll see what the follow-up attendance is this year.
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Interesting that in the A-Rod drama this week, we see again a PLAYER, publicly drawn and quartered.
A PLAYER squeezed for a public apology, and then being excoriated in the media for said apology not being quite good enough.
And at the same time, we hear Bud "Sargent Schultz" Selig claim no responsibility, no culpability whatsoever for the growth of the problem.
I'm not sure how Tom Hicks can demand an apology when he should in fact be offering one up for having so many users on his roster without his knowledge. Yeah right.
LET ME SEE IF I HAVE THIS RIGHT:
This team of Hicks' had A-Rod, Rafael Palmiero, Pudge Rodriguez on it's roster from the period in question, 2001-2003.
They also employed Ken Caminiti (2001), Gabe Kapler (2001-02) and Juan Gonzalez (2002). Not to mention at one time employing Jose Canseco.
This is also the team whose player representative to the union is credited with being the first clean player to step up at a union meeting and identify the extent of the problem in Rick Helling.
AND YOU, THE OWNER OF THE TEAM, HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON???
They should force this idiot to state his position under oath, perhaps before Congress, then strap his lying ass to a polygraph and see where the results take us.
By the way, as an interesting side note, the Rangers from 2001-2003 finished last in their division ALL THREE YEARS IN QUESTION.
Interesting stuff. It should make for some great labor-management negotiations going forward.
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