"Mainstream" Media's Take On Lack of O's Fans at the Yard

... on the Nats not drawing a crowd, either. But consider that even if the Nats crowd averages 15K a night (I have no idea what their numbers are for the Nats, but we’re pulling just over 18K average), and 1/3 of that (5,000) came to O’s games regularly, we’d have almost a 25% increase in our attendance! At least then we’d be at almost half capacity.

Just trying to add some perspective. Regardless, I think you’re absolutely right that both teams have dismal attendance and the net effect of the Washington team on the O’s is probably not that considerate … until one team starts winning and the bandwagon runs in that direction.

I get that the fans have just gotten fed up about losing, but is there no truth to the old saw, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game?” Granted, this is MLB, not tee ball, but if you’re a fan of the sport itself, you’ve gotta give the O’s credit at some level (O’s 10, Yankees 9 after 11, anyone?) for how they play.

Of course you can retort that Mora and Bynum keep killing us with slow and wild throws to Millar at first (Friday night, top of the 13th), but I’m still confident that the O’s play good ball. When you play 1/4 of your season against powerhouses with deep pockets like NY and Boston, though, you’re fighting a hard battle.

Maybe I’m too forgiving of my team, but I can’t beat up on the players for having lackluster ownership. These guys are motivated to succeed on a personal level (if only, however unfortunate for fans, to get traded to a team that has better ownership) and hopefully that motivation meets up to try to win games, too. They’ve made a career of baseball, like we’ve all chosen our own careers. Assuming we all like our jobs and want to do well both financially and in terms of how good our output is, try to see the relation between liking your job but hating your boss. It sucks the motivation right out from underneath you, and that’s probably a large part of what we’re seeing with the O’s.

Even with all that, I still like the team. I’ll continue to like the team. But you got me on the decision that the franchise isn’t worth my dollars. I’ve been going to less games and watching on TV instead. But I think that might have a little to do with loving Gary Thorne, Jim Palmer, and yes, even Amber Theoharis.

If you want to indict O’s fans for not supporting a losing team, you have to make this same accusation to every sports base except maybe the Cubs.

No no no no no. Well I mean yes. I don’t care to indict Orioles fans for not filling up a ballpark when the team sucks, because as you say nobody fills anything up for a sucky team. This is only grating when certain self-righteous Orioles fans bitch and moan about out-of-town fans (gasp) buying tickets. And this has nothing to do with the mook so and so saw in such and such a section being a jackass; that is about as tiresome an angle as it gets.

Orioles fans, or any fans for that matter, simply cannot be both a) defensive about the fact that they don’t fill up the stadium because the Orioles suck and b) angry that other fans actually do buy the available tickets, many of whom are bandwagon jumpers (and since when was that a crime? and whatever will we call the people who fill up Camden Yards if and when the Orioles are ever good again?) but also many of whom have gone out of their way to support their team. You can’t have it both ways. Either you fill up the park even when the team is bad, or you deal with the fact that, on certain nights, other people do. So probably the best rationale is to get the hell over it until the Orioles can win some damn games.