Here we are -- the last two weeks of the season -- and athe teams in the only two hot playoff races remaining are playing each other.

So are folks excited?

Well, here in LA, 35.000+ turned out to see the Dodgers beat the Giants. And in Oakland, a positively Expo-sized 22,000+ turned out to see the A's beat the Angels.

In short, acres and acres of empty seats. Its down to the wire and it seems like nobody cares.

What's going on here?

Good point, NoSteroidz....since these are the only two "races" still left to be determined, I was quite surprised by the weak turnouts at the gate last night, particularly in Oakland (22K??)....granted it was a Monday night, school is back in session, and the "loser" of the A's-Angels will obviously still make it into the playoffs as the A.L. wild card, but don't these fans realize the importance of home field advantage, not to mention showing support for their surprisingly strong team in general, especially after their GM Billy Beane (yeah, the OTHER Billy B.) has done such a masterful job in Oakland....I'm pulling for either the Halos or Twins to make it to the Series but after all their enthusiasm and full houses during the 20 game win streak, you would have thought that the A's fans would be behind their team a bit more -- maybe all the Bay Area baseball fans were home watching the Giants lose at Chavez Ravine?

As for the turnout in L.A. on Monday night, while it was a LITTLE more respectable than the paltry attendance up north, considering the consequence of the series with the loser virtually being out of the playoffs entirely I would have thought a sellout (or at least 40K+ minimum) would have been in order -- even if all the fans arrive in the 3rd inning and leave by the 8th, regardless of whether the outcome of the game is still in doubt....oh well, I guess it just goes to show that despite what O'Malley may have thought 45 years ago, the TRUE baseball fans still (and always will) reside on the EAST coast.

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: gamecock ]

It's clear to me that the narrowly-averted strike did plenty of damage to baseball. The fact that they even got CLOSE to a strike, after the tremendous damage done to the game last time around, showed me and plenty of others that the core of baseball is still pretty rotten.

King Kaufman at Salon.com had some interesting thoughts about this. What baseball needs to do now I particularly agree with him when he says that the owners (via Bud Selig) shoot themselves in the foot everytime they talk about how sick the game is and, especially, contraction.

Which brings up another issue, and another Kaufman article. The Angels-A's race is a dud

Kaufman proposed eight divisions of four teams each, and eliminating the wild card. I totally agree. I like football's new eight division alignment a lot. So I set up my own idea for baseball realignment late last night:

1) Move the Expos to DC; move to Marlins to Buffalo.

2) Expand to Portland (NL) and Mexico (AL).

3) Eliminate interleague play - with the exception of one home series & one road series against ONE TEAM from the opposite league.

4) Divide the leagues into two conferences each - so that a team plays the most games against teams in its division (20); fewer games against teams in the other division in its conference (12); and fewer still against teams in the opposite conference plus its Interleague partner (6).

5) The division winner ALWAYS plays the other division winner in its conference ... the winner of that game to face the other conference's champion; then the World Series.

What this plan would be to put the focus on rivalries - geographical as well as historical. Frankly, except for the natural Interleague series, Interleague play is STUPID. Astros fans are never going to get up for a game against the Indians. It just isn't gonna happen. But Astros-Rangers? Every year? Now that becomes a great rivalry.

It reestablishes the uniqueness of the world series, and most importantly of the pennant races.

It may not make any difference to the Angels or Dodgers - face it, it's LA. Folks there care about the Lakers, and only because they're consistently excellent. Nevertheless, I think it would reinvigorate baseball, and also put some sense back into the schedule - this way, certain weeks are DIVISIONAL for everyone, INTERLEAGUE for everyone, etc. Like when there were 12 teams in the National League, remember that? The symmetry was poetic, how that schedule worked!

Here's an article from USA Today about how attendance is down this season. It also mentions that there's always a dropoff in September, but it's worse than usual this year. The near-strike is to blame to some extent--people (groups in particular) returned tickets anticipating a strike.

Attendance comparison by the numbers

[quote]It may not make any difference to the Angels or Dodgers - face it, it's LA. Folks there care about the Lakers, and only because they're consistently excellent

---

Rubbish. I get so tired of Easterners pontificating about the sports scene here.

The Angels had almost-soldout crowds at The Ed last week for the A's, despite it being a weeknight during the start of the school year. They still had good crowds against a hapless Rangers team. The series against the M's to end the regular season is selling fine.

I'm a little shocked at the Dodgers/Giants not being sold out--I'm going tonight, so I get to benefit--but you know what? Baseball is dying, all over. I think that baseball thought "Oh, we avoided a strike, they'll be sooooo grateful and flock back to the ballpark". Uh no! And frankly, the Dodgers have been so mediocre for so long that the casual fan won't bother, even in a pennant race.

The Lakers could suck and they'd STILL get the great support. Hel-lo? Post-Showtime/pre-Shaq? Not a great time for the team, but the support was rock solid. UCLA & USC always draw good crowds for football and UCLA for basketball, but USC hasn't been any good in football in what, 10 years? The Kings have a fanatical fan base--hi Adam!--but again, years of being flat out terrible have taken their toll. Same as the Ducks--Disney can market them all they want but they SUCK! The Clippers were a joke for years and they got the crowds they deserved--small. Now they are young and exciting and they pull the crowds in.

Fine, this city will never have the level of fanaticism that, say, Red Sox fans have because it's made of largely of people from somewhere else. But you know what? I LOVE the attitude of fans here--sports are just another form of entertainment, not a life-and-death matter of self-esteem; they're no different than going to see The Lion King or a movie or Disneyland. If a movie is bad or a musical sucks, people stay away. If it's good, people will go. To expect a situation like the Cubs where people show up because of some "loveable losers" aura, no way. I love go to see bands--if I had the money, I could go see a GREAT band every night of the week; why should I go to see a boring, crappy team when I can go a kick-ass band in a small club? There's way too much going on here to waste ones time watching the effin' Clippers play like UCLA could beat them.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

How can a city as big as LA not be able to support ONE NFL team?

Dodgers fans are notorious for leaving early. Because there's so much to do in LA? Or to beat the traffic?

And don't call me an Easterner! I'm from Denver, where NOBODY's from, but people still support the local teams.

Jake, you're east of Los Angeles, so you're an Easterner to me! Remember that famous poster of NY where Manhattan took up about 1/2 the frame and the rest of the US was this tiny speck? Same deal!

Right, fans support the No-guts in Denver. It's the same as anywhere on the planet: win and they'll come; be crap and people will stay away. Look at the Rockies; now that the novelty has worn off and the team is crap, Coors sure has a lot of fans disguised as seats. The Broncos are the Broncos; they'll always do well; the Avalanche are successful but let's see them do poorly for about 3 seasons in row (ie after Roy leaves) and see how they do.

Have you ever been to Dodger Stadium? Have you tried to drive on 110 or the 5 during rush hour during the week? It's a freakin' parking lot! For fans coming from the 'burbs (the majority in other words), it's a real chore just to get to a game. My friend Kathy has a season ticket and I go to games with her once in a while. The guy that sits in front of her lives 1 1/2 hours away (that's if there's no traffic, riiiiggghhttt); it's a MAJOR deal for him just to get to games at all; if he's late or leaves early for the long drive home, good for him. I live 10 minutes away on surface streets so it's not a factor for me. Fine, Dodger fans are justifiably mocked for coming late/leaving early, but it just makes my point: it's entertainment, it's not life and death. It's why I don't go to Angel games during the week: I'm simply not going to spend 1 1/2 hours in a traffic jam on the 5 to get there and then get home at midnight. I work and for some reason, I like being able to stay awake the next morning.

That's the traffic side of it. But how many times have I heard broadcasters from back east marvel that, during a beautiful summer day, people don't want to spend a ton of money to buy overpriced tickets, eat shitty ballpark food, watch a shitty team and fight the traffic instead of going to the beach, mountains or desert for the day. A lot. The Dodgers will always get their hardcore fans, but it's the casual fans that fills the seats; those people can't be arsed to come to the ballgame because other entertainment choices are more appealing, plain and simple.

We CAN support the NFL here. Let's review:

The Rams were loved here and the Coliseum was a great place to go to a game (I'm talking 60's/70's here). So Carroll Rosenblum dies (is murdered?) and his lounge singer wife starts running the team. She gets greedy and wants a new stadium. For complicated reasons it doesn't get done and she packs up and moves to Anaheim. They totally destroyed The Big A by making it a multi-purpose stadium; it was AWFUL for baseball and terrible for football. Except for the one side-line you were MILES from the action. So through bad management (ie pissing off Eric Dickerson so much that he left), a piss-poor stadium that was remote from the fan's historical fanbase and other factors, the team floundered. The Lounge Singer got the mooks in St. Louis to build her a palace--or the palace was there and they lured her would probably be more accurate--and she packed up and left. My friend Karl is STILL devastated. He will cackle with glee and do a jig when The Blond One dies.

So, don't blame the fans on that one. Why SHOULD fans support a crap team that had already left one area to move, in an awful stadium and that was threatening to move? Because they deign to show up? Uh, NO.

The Raiders? Carpetbaggers, pure and simple. Al couldn't get the people of Oakland to fork out for a stadium so he moved here. People here LOVED the Raiders, esp. the Latino population; their games always sold well at the Coliseum. Al tried to strong arm Irwindale (a gravel pit) and Hollywood Park in to building him a stadium at vast taxpayer expense. The idiots in that ghastly hellhole of Irwindale were stupid enought to give The Greasy Haired One $10 million, non-refundable, just for Al to consider moving there. Stupid f**ks! If I was a taxpayer in Irwindale, I'd have led a recall drive against the politicians that did that. Davis played his cards and flat out, people here weren't willing to give in to his blackmail. He then tried the "We'll move back to Oakland, I swear we will" tactic and people here said "WhatEVER dude". He moved back to Oakland, extorted a ton of money from that city and is now bitching about his horrible stadium etc.

f**k Georgia Frontiere. f**k Al Davis. Burn in hell the both of yas. It's great being in the position that the NFL needs us, but we don't need the NFL; there will simply be no stadium built here with tax money, so the NFL is going to have to find someone with deep pockets to build a stadium on their own.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]