It was yet another long, painful season for the Orioles and their fans. The outlook began as an optimistic one, but despite the emergence of young talented players such as Nick Markakis, Adam Jones and Matt Wieters, Baltimore could not finish any better than fifth place in the American League East Division.
This, the twelveth straight season the Orioles have finished with a losing record, proved to be to disheartening for Baltimore fans. Oriole Park at Camden Yards filled only 1,907,163 seats all summer, making it the second season in a row that the stadium tallied record lows in attendance.
Yes, the Orioles as an organization are not quite a great product to watch, there is usually a strong following in the Baltimore community, which supports its professional teams with pride. This season, it seemed that the fans were sending a message.
“I don’t think that honestly is a surprise, given the economy and the team expectations, and given what’s going on around us,” Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said. “Everything considered, it’s not as bad as I thought it might have been when we started.”
The Orioles have not had a contending team since the 1997 season when the team still boasted star players such as Cal Ripken, Mike Mussina and Roberto Alomar. Every season since then the Orioles have lost the interest of talented free agents and have failed to consistantly grow minor league prospects into stars.
Major League Baseball as a whole has dropped 6.9 percent in attendance from the 2008 to 2009 season. The neighboring Washington Nationals experienced a 22 percent decline from 2008.
Fans and players alike, hope that as the young talent begins to flourish, the product will improve and the wins will add up.
“This is a great baseball town and I’d love to see us win our fans back, not just ask them to come back,” second baseman Brian Roberts said. “
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Dan Connolly, the writer for that article, is in the press pox for every home and away game that the Orioles played all season. I cannot argue with his point of view, and his facts. He has first hand knowledge of the Orioles struggles on the field, and what he sees everyday is the main reason why the organization fails to attract a consistent fan base.
Connolly could have chosen to add more statistical data to show the trend in attendance, or shared more information as to why the Orioles as a team have failed to produce wins. Overall he kept it short, referring simply to the fact that with the record the team produced, translates directly to the amount of people showing up.
In this case further investigation and research could have been applied, but this was not a feature story, just a reminder to readers. He did retrieve very good quotes of course from business personnel and a player. Another angle may have been to capture the fan reaction to the attendance and where the organization stands in their eyes.
Matt Wieters(15) and Nolan Reimold(14) give the O's a bright future (Photo courtesy of Baltimore Sun)
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