Attendance is down. Everyone knows that to be true, as well as the reasons for it. When the economy, specifically the fear (thanks, media) of the future of the economy, joins a tag team with a piss-poor baseball product, attendance is going to get suplexed from the top rope. I’ve seen the numbers, and watched games on television, so of course I know attendance is down, but I hadn’t really felt it before Sunday. Despite the reported attendance (tickets sold) of 30,023, (nearly 11,000 less than capacity), the actual AIS count felt like much, much less. There were no lines to speak of at any of the concession stands or restrooms. The ushers weren’t preventing people from coming down to better seats. Even reasonably sure that everyone in attendance got at least 20 seconds of camera time on the Kiss Cam.
The concourse on Sunday was almost…luxurious…compared to recent years. It was reminiscent of being in the Astrodome, without the wafting odors of catshit or urine. Speaking of the Dome, the last time the Astros drew worse than this year? 1997, when fans, still hungover from the “build it or we’re leaving” referendum, managed to stagger in at a clip of about 25k per night. And while this is all sad for Drayton McLane’s nieces and nephews and their visions of a Merry Christmas (linger longer), in a way, it was nice. The percentage of idiots was probably the same, but the overall number of them was far lower than it usually is. The stadium employees weren’t as frazzled as they sometimes get, and if you wanted to take your time doing something inside the park, it was easy to do. For a Sunday. But as an ongoing concern, the attendance is potentially a huge problem.
Pundits and fans can whine and cry all day about how the Astros allocate their payroll (and they do), but it gets overlooked (by overlooked, I mean willfully ignored) that Houston has one of the higher overall payrolls in baseball. Beginning the season, 14 of the 30 teams had reduced payroll from 2008. 10 of those teams had slashed payroll by more than 10%. The Astros, instead, increased their payroll and currently pay out either the eighth or ninth highest payroll in the sport, depending on the source. The attendance at MMPUS has dropped more than 15% over last year. Only nine teams have a worse drop (percentage-wise) so far this season. Interestingly, the Astros are outdrawing all but 10 teams in 2009 on a per game average.
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What does any of that mean? Other than Pam “Hathaway” Gardner scrambling to get people to the park by painting things different colors (Pink in the Park will be followed up by a similar Brown Around Town promotion for Prostate Cancer research. Probably), the Astros need to start winning, and McLane needs to not panic. Easy for me to say, as it’s not my money. The perception is that if the Astros are out of it, McLane is going to start shedding payroll like he owns the Marlins. Even though the team hasn’t done anything close to that since 1995. But as the Astros haven’t sniffed the playoffs since 2005, who knows where McLane’s thoughts are? If you could find a taker for Miguel Tejada or Jose Valverde or convince Carlos Lee to ignore his no-trade, is that enough to offset the attendance drop?
Being optimistic after the sweep of the Fathers, if the Astros start winning, does the lack of attendance keep the Astros from persuing a top of the rotation pitcher at the trading deadline? Dropping payroll to pick up a pitcher aren’t mutually exclusive activites, but would likely necessitate multiple moves (with multiple partners…bow-chicka-bow-bow), if not during the season, certainly afterwards.
Houston, for good or ill, supports winners by buying tickets. There’s also the somewhat conflicting belief that Houston has become a baseball town (at least until Pre-season football starts). It’ll be interesting to see how the season plays out, but we could be witnessing the final battle between Gardner and Tal Smith for McLane’s soul. Somebody’s going to lose a hand.
Justice Through Osmosis?
One of the great things about the Rockets’ playoff run (run=getting out of the first round) is that Richard Justice isn’t writing columns or even paying attention to the Astros (outside of the few tidbits he tweets to those of us foolhardy enough to follow him.) The most obvious benefit (of many) is that Astros fans been spared the yo-yo-ing opinions surrounding the team and their (lack of) performance. Except, apparently, he’s given his gift of conflicting himself to Astros’ manager Cecil Cooper.
Cooper is apparently a savant, but since May 3rd, Cooper has dropped a utility infielder, picked up a 13th pitcher, wondered aloud if he needed a 14th pitcher, claimed that his bullpen wasn’t tired about 24-hours later, decided he didn’t need the 13th pitcher, and more or less recalled the the same utility infielder, stating that he shouldn’t have ever DFAed him. The net result of all of this? Alberto Arias is begging someone to use a spare bedroom, and Fulchino is once again just a style of pants.
Credit Where It’s Due
Although it was probably Ed Wade’s doing, Cooper should get credit for putting Felipe Paulino back in the rotation. While I hate that Russ Ortiz is moving to the long relief role that so rightly should belong to Brian Moehler, putting Paulino in the rotation gives the Astros the best chance of success right now. And it only took Cooper 3 “relief” appearances (3 innings pitched, 21.00 ERA) to get the idea. Progress, my friends, ain’t just a city in Mississippi.
Before We Leave
Thanks to the largess of Geoff Leach, my kids were in a position to get some autographs prior to Sunday’s game against the Padres. My kids were jazzed and are now the owners of autographs from Brian Moehler, Hunter Pence and Cecil Cooper. Pence didn’t sign his name with an exclamation point, but Cooper did tell my son that he needed to work on pulling the ball. I immediately ran the ball Cooper signed to the Shed. We’ll see.
*Fingers crossed.*