The Baltimore Orioles are in a fight for the playoffs, but the fans haven’t been around to witness it.
Outfielder Adam Jones voiced his displeasure Wednesday with the lack of attendance at Camden Yards, per Eddie Matz of ESPN.com:
It’s sad. It’s eerie. We grind and grind and grind. We understand, there’s a lot that that factors into it. Ticket prices being higher, although you can bring in food and beverages. Marketing and promotions, I’m sure they’re not the best. I get all that. I’m just saying, the city wanted a winner – the last five years we got ’em a winner. I don’t if know if they’ve gotten complacent already on us winning. I wish they haven’t. I hope they haven’t. Because winning is fun every single year, and being in this race is exciting every single year. So to the ones that come every night, thank you with open arms.
The Orioles are in the midst of a three-game homestand against the first-place Boston Red Sox, a team they trailed by three games entering Monday. Despite the importance of the series, the team drew only 18,456 fans for the first game and 20,387 in the second, according to ESPN.com. Oriole Park at Camden Yards has a capacity of 45,971 fans.
Boston won both games by a score of 5-2 to extend its lead in the American League East, although the Orioles still have control of the second AL Wild Card as of Wednesday.
Attendance issues have been a problem all year long for Baltimore. According to ESPN.com, the squad ranks 20th in the majors with an average of 26,513 fans per game. Interestingly, the Orioles also rank ninth in road attendance.
According to Baseball-Reference.com, Camden Yards has seen a drop of over 2,600 people per game in the past year, which ranks fifth worst in baseball. Of the four teams with sharper declines, three of them (Milwaukee, Minnesota and Cincinnati) are at least 15 games below .500, while the Pittsburgh Pirates have failed to live up to expectations after winning 98 games a year ago.
The Orioles, however, still can’t get fans into the seats despite remaining in contention.
“We’ve fought our tails off for 145 games to put ourselves into a unique situation as of September,” Jones noted.
The question will be whether the fans will hold up their end of the bargain.
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