Taking us out of ballgames
Nobody goes to baseball games anymore, at least nobody I know, and even though I only know Toni, Isaiah, Mia, Daisy, the FedEx guy and my barber — who, incidentally, I only see once every two months these days because my hair now grows slower than Bermuda grass in the Mojave Desert — MLB attendance figures seem to support my claim.
Why are people no longer going to MLB games?
That's why I am here, ladies and gentlemen.
My short answer: I don't know.
But I'll give you a longer answer momentarily – first, let's look briefly at the decline of MLB attendance.
We'll start with an existential question, first posed by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1955: Why would anyone go to a Baltimore Orioles game?
Anyway, in 2018, after 14 straight seasons averaging over 30,000 fans per game, MLB attendance fell to 28,830 per game, a 4 percent drop from 2017. In 2019, it's even worse, with 18 of 30 teams down from a year ago.
The poorest numbers are in the Sunshine State, where the Tampa Bay Rays average 14,540 and the Miami Marlins average an MLB-low 9,545. Best I can tell, Floridians get their fill of baseball during spring training, then by April shift their sights to liquor stores, gun shops, Sam's Clubs and Red Lobster.
All across America, people are not going to baseball games, even when they want to.
Take the case of my neighbor Arnie Weiss, a diehard New York Yankees fan with Yankees underwear, a Yankees license plate, a Yankees doormat and a Yankees shower nozzle head.
He went to the advance ticket window at Dodger Stadium to get Yankees-Dodgers tickets for August. But he was informed he could not buy individual game tickets, he had to purchase a 20-game package. That's like going to the supermarket to buy filet mignon and being told you couldn't get the steak unless you also...