by Tommy Gimler
During Game 4 of the Tigers-Athletics ALDS Series Wednesday night, TBS/TNT announcer Buck Martinez mentioned how amazing the Oakland Athletics fans were at supporting their team. Bull shit. We’re here to tell you they are some of the worst fans in baseball.
Each of the 30 MLB teams hosted at least 79 (most hosted 81) games this year, and the Oakland Athletics ranked 27th in total attendance, averaging less than 21,000 fans per game. Baltimore and Cincinnati also ranked in the bottom half of the sport, yet every on-air announcer will tell you in the postseason what awesome fans these teams have and how their support willed them into the postseason.
Here’s just how “amazing” these “fans” were this year:
September 25, 2012 – It’s a beautiful Tuesday night in Cincinnati, 67 degrees and overcast. Even better is that the Cincinnati police haven’t issued a curfew in almost a year, so this party can go all night. The Reds are hosting the rival Brewers, who are making an unbelievable push toward the postseason. The Reds are trying to clinch home-field advantage throughout the postseason, and the Reds fans are going crazy. Yup, all 18,155 of them, less than 43% of capacity…
August 18, 2012 – It’s the first game of a doubleheader against the Cubs on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, and the Reds have been on a tear since Joey Votto went down with a knee injury. It’s 79 degrees and sunny, yet only 28,754 pay to watch the action, leaving one-third of the stadium empty. Meanwhile, one week earlier, the same two teams take the field in Chicago for some Saturday afternoon action. Keep in mind, the Cubs have been out of it since April, yet Chicago fans pack Wrigley Field to the tune of 40,602 people or about 99% full…
July 15, 2012 – Baltimore hosts Detroit in their first series after the All-Star Game. The Orioles are eight behind the Yankees in the AL East, but they are clinging to a Wild Card spot. The best pitcher in baseball, Justin Verlander, is on the mound for the visiting Tigers. Yet only 30,439, not even two-thirds of Oriole Park at Camden Yards capacity, show up to take in the action…
August 10, 2012 – It’s a Friday night in Baltimore, and the Orioles are eight games over .500 this late in the year for the first time since 1997. It’s a glorious 86 degrees in the City of Syphilis, yet only 17,277 come out to watch Manny Machado become the first player in the modern era to hit two home runs and a triple in his first two games as the O’s smoke the visiting Royals…
July 21, 2012 – The Oakland A’s have won 12 of their last 14, and are the best story in baseball. It’s a Saturday night at the Coliseum, and the Yankees are in town. Not the Royals, Indians, or Blue Jays, but the New York fucking Yankees. The A’s win again, but just over 28,000 “fans” take in the action. Apparently, the rest of them didn’t make parole in time for the 6:05pm start…
October 1, 2012 – The A’s are two games behind the Rangers as the two teams begin a three-game set to decide who wins the AL West. The players are pumped. The media is pumped. But apparently that isn’t the feeling in Oakland. Only 21,162 people show up to watch the home team move within one game of the division lead. Meanwhile, in Miami, and yes, I said Miami, the Marlins and Mets, two squads that were pretty much eliminated in August, put 24,543 illegals in the seats. It’s the same deal in Arizona, where the Diamondbacks are hosting the Rockies. Hell, some of the Rockies players haven’t shown up for a game since July, yet over 24,000 elderly folks fill the seats at Chase Field in Phoenix…
Nothing against the players, here. If you’ve been watching the A’s and Orioles since June, and from the looks of it you haven’t, it would be hard to find any other teams that have worked and played as hard as those two squads.
But this post is about the fans, the lack of, and/or the people who going into tonight’s Game 5 against the Yankees calling themselves fans. You’re not. You can’t just show up when your local team makes the postseason and start waving your little white hankies and then cry when your team gets eliminated by one whose fans have been there since day one.
And I don’t want to hear the argument of these cities and their shitty economies because no city has been hit harder than Detroit. Yet their fan base was able to pony up their unemployment benefits and make it out to old ballpark and finish with an attendance over three million.
The bottom line is that Orioles, Reds, and Oakland “fans” don’t deserve to win a World Series until they start going to the park to support their teams like the people of Philadelphia, Chicago’s north side, San Francisco, and St. Louis do. Even a small market team like Milwaukee put almost three million peeps in the seats again this year, good enough for 11th in overall attendance.
And while we’re at it, stop wearing your Dodgers hats to the game when the A’s are hosting the Tigers…