EMPTY SEATS SHOW FANS NOT CONVINCED.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI It's not easy to interview empty ballpark seats, which speak in squeaks and groans if they talk at all. So you can only try to imagine how the vacant sections in the reserved level and bleachers would answer the questions echoing through Dodger Stadium • • [ this week. Why did the Dodgers' game against the division rival San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. Padres on Tuesday night draw a paid crowd of less than 30,000? (From high above first base, a faint voice says it's because the Dodgers still haven't convinced a skeptical public they're for real.) Why were the Dodgers out-drawn by the Angels on each of the three nights the clubs went head-to-head with home games last week? (From the top of the left-field pavilion comes soft mumbling mum·ble v. mum·bled, mum·bling, mum·bles v.tr. 1. To utter indistinctly by lowering the voice or partially closing the mouth: mumbled an insincere apology. that the city hasn't yet embraced this new-look collection of ballplayers.) Why does Los Angeles' first-place team rank near the bottom of the playoff contenders for attendance at the mid-week games that really test a club's core support? (From behind the right-field foul pole comes a whisper that the prices are too high, the tone of the fans' taunts too coarse and the music too loud to make Dodger Stadium a nice place to hang out unless there's a giveaway, it's a weekend party night or the San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California that currently play in the National League West Division. New York Giants history Early days and the John McGraw era are in town.) Dodgers management doesn't hear the empty seats talking. The club will tell you the school-night crowds always shrink once summer vacation Summer vacation (also called summer holidays or summer break) is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students are off for 3 months, depending on the country and district. ends. It will say there are bound to be some soft spots in seasons when they're drawing well overall. It will say a lot of the fans who aren't showing up are the ones who invested their baseball cash in the playoffs when tickets went on sale last Friday. Manager Jim Tracy
``Yeah, we feel it,'' Tracy said Wednesday before the Dodgers lost to the Padres 7-3 in front of 34,105 fans and vast areas of empty blue chairs, ``and we're very appreciative of the electricity we feel when we came to the ballpark. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what the final number was (for attendance the night before), but it felt like 40 to 50 (thousand).'' Tuesday night's paid attendance was 29,704 at 56,000-seat Dodger Stadium. But Tracy said he judges a crowd more by the sound it makes. ``They've very noisy, very much into the game,'' Tracy said. The Dodgers can point proudly to their league-leading average attendance of 42,000, which puts them on a 3.4-million pace for the season, which would be their highest total in 21 years. They can direct your attention toward the three consecutive sellouts for the St. Louis Cardinals For the National Football League team that played in St. Louis from 1960 to 1987, see . The St. Louis Cardinals (also referred to as "the Cards" or "the Redbirds") are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. games last weekend. They can boast of selling out their tickets for playoff division series home games in 3 1/2 hours last Friday. ``There's no lack of interest,'' said Gary Miereanu, the Dodgers' vice president of communications. Last week, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Dodgers played host to the Arizona Diamondbacks This article is about the baseball team. For other uses, see Diamondback. The Arizona Diamondbacks (also referred to as the D-backs) are a Major League Baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They play in the West Division of the National League. , last in the National League West, while the Angels entertained the Toronto Blue Jays "Blue Jays" redirects here. For other uses, see Blue Jay (disambiguation).. The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. , last in the American League East The American League East Division is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. Four of its five teams are located in Eastern United States and one in Canada Current members
The Dodgers announced crowds of 35,078, 28,888 and 27,287. The Angels chalked up 36,277, 36,905 and 37,514. What, they didn't have school the next day in Anaheim? Thirteen teams can still call themselves playoff contenders. Pretty much any of them can draw well on a weekend or Head Groundskeeper Bobblehead Day. So look at how they're drawing in September on those difficult Monday-through-Thursday dates. The Dodgers were averaging 31,401 going into Wednesday's game against the Padres. That ranked ninth among the 13 contenders. The Dodgers were doing better than Atlanta, Florida, Oakland, Minnesota. All smaller-market teams. The Dodgers were behind San Francisco, San Diego, St. Louis, the Chicago Cubs, Houston, the Angels, the New York Yankees  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. and Boston.
No schools in Houston either, apparently. We can only guess at the reason or reasons why Dodgers fans aren't as fired up, night in and night out, as fans in other towns. Is it the team? Maybe 15 seasons without a playoff victory, and feeling that anything less than the playoffs is failure, leave the fans playing wait-and-see as the Dodgers' division lead shrank to 3 1/2 games Wednesday. Is it the players? Maybe the trade-deadline roster shakeup shake·up n. A thorough, often drastic reorganization, as of the personnel in a business or government. Noun 1. shakeup left fans uncertain who the Dodgers really are. I don't have one easy answer. I keep waiting for the empty seats to provide one. All I know is that part of the fun of a pennant race is being at a jam-packed ballpark, and in L.A. this year, you can't count on that. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Steve Finley races around third on his way to scoring on Robin Ventura's double in the first inning of the Dodgers' 7-3 loss. John Lazar/Staff Photographer |
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