Tuesday, April 21, 2009
If a Pitcher Debuts and No One Is There to See it... Does it Count on the Arb Clock?
I know, bad weather, the Caps were playing, blah blah. It was a disappointing showing for the debut of our #1 prospect.
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Steven - 50 degrees. Rainy. Two hour delay. I'm shocked they got what they did.
I acknowledged those factors. Still, it was an incredibly small crowd.
BTW--the delay didn't come till 8:30. Everyone I spoke to there assumed the game would start on time, including the ushers. It was dry as a bone at 7. I don't really think it's accurate to say that the delay per se was a factor in the number of people in the stadium at 7. I went because Weather.com was predicting a 30% chance of rain in the evening. And while it rained, it wasn't cold. I didn't notice the exact temp, but I had a hoodie on and was perfectly comfortable.
My Dad had tickets for last night, but he didn't go because of the weather. Myself, I was in a Mexican restaurant in Arlington where the predominately Latino clientele was cheering as the Washington Capitals came back from the dead. In the restaurant's bar was a sign proclaiming this is Caps country. Now this is real diversity and heart warming! Z Man Jr. did have an excellent debut for the Nats.
There were probably around 250 people there when the game ended.
we were there. granted, i was in the Red Loft watching hockey, but thank goodness for the "rain" delay, i got to see hockey AND J-Zimm.
I'm curious to see if there was any bump in the TV/radio ratings from a normal game. I've been looking forward to the JZimm debut since February, but I feared the rain delay and decided not to see it in person. Call me a weak fan if you want, I can live with that, but I was checking every 5 minutes for an announcement about the start time on MASN.
I wouldn't expect them to have 40k people go through the turnstiles on a night like last night, or even 20k. But they had 19k on a gorgeous Saturday and whatever it was last night under less than ideal conditions. Good teams never have crowds like last night. As has been said many times, they're getting the attendance they deserve.
Steven, that's just not true. I've got Extra Innings, and while flipping through the channels I've come across plenty of quality teams playing in front of empty stadiums after long rain delays. And that's even before you factor in the Caps playoff game (which is why I personally chose to stay home). And the coled weather also contribues, making a light rain seem ten times worse.
I remember tons of Chicken Littles yelling about the sky falling after the second-ever game at Nats Park last season, when the stadium was 3/4ths empty for a game against the Marlins in cold weather on the same day as the NCAA basketball championship. Somehow they were still able to average almost 30,000 a game for a 100 loss team by year's end.
Honestly, I'd argue that they get more attendance than they deserve.
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