Baseballhead:
Living In A Fan-tasy

Michael Cox

This week on Baseballhead, we salute ESPN's audience analysis team, who, armed with sophisticated demographic and psychographic projections, determined that the potential MLB work stoppage warranted a half-hour primarily consisting of a Q&A with noted labor analyst Torii Hunter, and that it was high time for a two-hour prime-time special on the Raiderettes.

Well, as I speak to you today, the threat of a strike still hangs like former Rep. James Traficant's toupee over Major League Baseball. The owners haven't yet dug in and attempted to ram revenue sharing and a "luxury tax" down the players' throats, and players still haven't decided whether ESPN has intimidated them enough to set a strike date after Sept. 11. Every time one of the MLB lawyers or Gene Orza says even one good word about negotiations, it becomes cause for celebration, because we're all pretty much in the dark.

The only thing we do know is that fans are angry! Just how angry, you ask? Why, angry enough to strike!

Yes, apparently not humiliated enough by the lack of disinterest in the hyped July "fan walkout," various plucky Web-savvy folk hit the message boards and called the newspapers in an attempt to take another stab at "sending baseball a message" on August 1. And the result? According to MLBFanStrike.com, a resounding success! Hey, anger rules!

Citing various average team attendance figures versus the crowds who viewed games on August 1, the "fan strike" folks determined that their hard work paid off to the tune of an overall five percent decline in attendance last Thursday. And that's not all: in select cities the decline was much higher! Seats were 24 percent less filled in Tampa Bay! Butts stayed out of 30 percent more chairs in Florida! Lawd a'mighty, land sakes alive, a whopping 45 percent just said no in Oakland!

Break out the Big Wheels and venison sausages, Matilda! Fans win! Fans win! Th-a-a-a-a-a fans win!

Unfortunately, in their haste to taste victory, the fan strike folks forgot to take into account that their "action" was taking place on a Thursday -- not the best-attended day of the week in MLB to begin with, to say the least. Quel faux pas.

That 45 percent attendance hit in Oakland? If you take into account the fact that the A's opponent was the oafish and shiftless Tigers, then average the Coliseum crowds for under-.500 teams on Thursdays, you get an overall 12,856, which is actually lower than the "strike day" attendance of 13,861.

How about Florida? Averaging all their prior Thursday games, you get a figure of 7,277, meaning that on August 1 an extra 69 folks came to the park, perhaps just to see what all the fuss was about.

On the other hand, fans did stay away in Tampa and Pittsburgh -- to be exact, 258 fewer folks than usual opted to see the Pirates play the flailing Rockies, and 848 more than normal refused to go inside and watch the Rays take on the mighty Orioles (as compared to all Thursday games not played against teams named the Yankees or Red Sox).

The most rousing "success" of the day took place in Texas, where 24,834 saw the Rangers face both the Red Sox and the August heat, down from the average 26,564 who watched baseball on Thursdays at The Ballpark in Arlington (not counting the full house who came out for a fireworks show on Independence Day). That made for a 6.5 percent downturn.

Okay, so in the end, the second "fan strike" may have actually resulted in a better-attended Thursday of baseball than usual. What's more troubling, however, is the chest-thumping self-congratulatory gloating on the front page of MLBFanStrike.com, because it smacks of the same political flim-flammery that such a "fan action" is supposed to combat.

I'm willing to keep an open mind here: their front-page inclusion of the heavily flawed "Fan Cost Index" suggests that maybe they're just not very good with numbers. But what they should be doing, if they really care about the game more than getting to hear their own voices on sports-talk radio, is to be asking why "the fans" just didn't seem to give a toss.

Bowden says the forbidden words: While Gammons can go on and on about baseball and the anniversary of disaster, and his colleagues at ESPN can individually harass all 30 union reps about whether they plan to "take it into account when considering a strike date," let one GM draw a parallel between September 11 and the potential disaster a strike could cause for MLB, and they're lining up behind him with red-hot pokers.

And not satisfied with Jim Bowden's contrite retraction of said analogy, Lord High Commissioner Bud Selig has fined the hapless fellow for his lapse. To reaffirm that Major League Baseball is in fact the most patriotic of all sports, Selig will likely order a few extra performances of "God Bless America," which seems to be MLB's equivalent of a Hail Mary.

Tardy Hall of Fame comment: In my fervor to provide you with the very best in sports entertainment last week, I was remiss in neglecting to acknowledge the induction of Ozzie Smith into the annals of immortality. (For best results, imagine that last sentence in a Howard Cosell voice.)

Smith is a worthy addition to the Hall, but his inclusion now has scribes everywhere salivating over the possibilities this opens up. Retired no-stick good-glove middle infielders are positively aglow over the idea that Hall of Fame voters might be warming to the idea of defense as a ticket to Cooperstown. In his ongoing attempt to enshrine the entire Big Red Machine, Joe Morgan is championing Dave Concepcion. And think of the possibilities among today's shortstops alone! Omar Vizquel! Rey Ordonez! Neifi Perez!

Sorry, but I prefer to think of Smith's induction as a sign that you'd better be at least that good to get in on defense alone. Unfortunately, so far nobody beats The Wiz.

about the author

Michael Cox also has harsh words for Cher. Explain that all that coloring is not harming her natural hair at mc@strikethree.com.