Poole: Despite all, fans can't get enough baseball

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 7, 2008 | by Monte Poole

IT WAS AN ambitious project, 20 months of almost daily labor, with private meetings and clandestine interrogations, sold as a search for the truth.

It would change the way we look at sports. Maybe even make us look away.

Remember the Mitchell Report? Didn't think so.

Commissioned by Major League Baseball, it was made public over the winter, exposing rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs among players and the complicity of executives. The report named names, alleged criminal connections and concluded baseball was corrupt on several levels.

This 311-page bomb blew up several careers and maimed many others -- only to have the fan emerge unscathed and profoundly indifferent.

One-fifth of the way into the 2008 season, MLB's attendance is on a record pace. Again. For the fifth straight year. With summer and pennant races yet to come, causing attendance to spike, expect the old mark of 79.5 million to be shattered in '08.

Seeing a rise in season-ticket sales, commissioner Bud Selig thrust out his chest, stuck his thumbs in his lapel and boasted to the New York Times that MLB likely would surpass 80 million fans for the first time.

That was BEFORE the season.

No wonder the commish is so smug.

In the wake of the Mitchell Report, the Roger Clemens spectacle, the Barry Bonds court appearances and multiple suspensions of players alleged to be dirty, we have responded with a stampede of support for the game. Can it be clearer that the sins of the game do not dim our affections for it?

Aside from a lockout or a strike, there is nothing to suggest we won't be faithful to whatever baseball sells us.

Oh, two or three fans are holding out. On "strike" from the game, if you will. Disgusted by the cheating and the insults on intelligence from Selig and others, they're waiting until they perceive resolution or are ready to forgive.

Bless them for their uncompromising principles.

As for the rest of us, which seems to be about 99.9 percent of those who know a bat from a ball, we're there. And we're bringing friends.

The Boston Red Sox can't print enough tickets. While Fenway Park seats 37,400, their average attendance through 18 home games is 37,622.

Attendance is down almost 2,000 per game at Yankee Stadium, dropping from 52,739 to 50,902. A few miles away from the Bronx, at Shea Stadium, the Mets have seen their ticket sales go up by about 2,000 per game -- from 47,579 to 49,841.

The A's are among the few teams playing before smaller home crowds, likely because they lack identifiable stars and because expectations are lower than at any time since the mid-1990s.

The Giants' declining attendance surely can be traced to low expectations and, moreover, the absence of celebrity. Bonds no longer is there to chase records, pique curiosities and drive ticket sales at The House Named For A Phone Company.

Elsewhere, though, the numbers generally show wild approval of MLB's product.

Led by 44,181 at Chavez Ravine to see the Mets visit the Dodgers and 39,478 in Detroit as the Tigers played host to the Red Sox, MLB on Monday went over the 14 million mark. We'll see 15 million before the weekend.

The people and their wallets are speaking so loudly and clearly they can't hear what Jose Canseco has to say. They're too busy rooting for their teams to get sidetracked by the cheating and sleaze within the sport of baseball.

Does this mean they approve of performance-enhancing drugs? No. It means they ... don't ... care.

As long as the ballpark is clean, the ball is white and the hot dogs warm, we're going to show up. If there is a chance to see a triple, a 98 mph fastball or walk-off home run, we're coming out. If the Cubs are atrocious, we'll line up to squeeze into Wrigley Field.

We'll be there despite record-high gasoline prices. Despite record-high mortgage defaults. Despite rising food prices. Despite conceding integrity.

True again is the axiom that any publicity is better than no publicity.

For those who will scrape together enough pennies to buy a ticket to see Barry Zito pitch or J. D. Drew swing a bat, that's their business and their cash. They have a right to use it as they wish.

They are, presumably, bringing some comfort for themselves.

It was a few weeks ago that Barack Obama, the Illinois senator and presidential candidate, was widely being quoted from remarks he made earlier about the inclinations of some Americans.

He claimed in essence that, out of bitterness, perhaps linked to a feeling of disenfranchisement, some "cling" to staples such as guns and religion -- two things they believe in, come hell or high water, even if it leads them to support causes directly opposed to their practical needs.

Given our devotion to baseball, perhaps Sen. Obama should have added it.

Then again, the numbers are showing us baseball is a form of religion.

Contact Monte Poole at (510) 208-6461

or mpoole@bayareanewsgroup.com.