Saturday, April 5, 2008

Where are the Fans?

I was one of the 10,000 fans in attendance for Friday's thrilling Marlins win against the Pirates.

Which part of the previous sentence do you have a problem with?

If you guessed "Friday's thrilling Marlins win" you're wrong and an idiot.

It's a Friday night of the first full week of the MLB season. Why are there only 10,000 fans at a big league game?

I know the Marlins and Pirates do not appeal to most fans as the most exhilarating match-up, but I still believed that more people would be there to support South Florida's baseball franchise.

This is flat-out inexcusable. Other than the 15 devoted Marlins fans, the 30 devoted Pirates fans, the four 7 year-old girls screaming at the top of their lungs in row 18, and me, there was literally nobody at the game.

In fact, I'm gonna take this a step further. I truly feel that Florida houses some of the worst sports fans in the United States. Why can't we stay in our seats for the last five minutes of a Heat game where Miami is down by 4 with 30 seconds left? And why can't we show up at a freaking Marlins game...once...please...and not when they're in a playoff race.

PEOPLE, IT'S ABOUT TIME WE START SUPPORTING OUR TEAMS BY GOING TO THEIR GAMES!

3 comments:

JSponge said...

A few more thrilling wins like the game last night and you might just see a few more fans showing up (fair weather fans, I might add). 13-0 blowouts don't help, though.

Unknown said...

I also was at the game and I thought the same thing. This was weak, even for a Marlins crowd. I think people are just so disenamored with the Cabrera-Willis trade that they want nothing to do with it. I have never seen so little fanfare for opening day.

Anonymous said...

South Florida fans have always been this way, always will be. I have never really figured out a reason why. I remember being at game 7 in 1997, every game for 2 months back were sold out packed. '98, they maybe got 15,000+ twice? Back in '96, Panthers make a run to the Cup finals, sell out 50+ games in a row. 98-present, they're lucky to get anyone to show up. Dolphins have a mediocre season in '04 (i think it was '04, the last year they made the playoffs and lost to NE?) even the late year games weren't sold out. I remember listening to the playoff game because it was blacked out. The Heat go the same way. Why? No clue. Maybe with the internet being what it is these days, it's far easier to stay at home and follow your teams close without going to the games. But for whatever reason, South Florida has failed to create more than a few die-hard fans for any team.