Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 27, 2003
The KC View

Craig Stambaugh, an admitted Cubs fan, enjoyed this Joe Posnanski column in the KC Star about why the Cardinals fans are baseball's best fans.


So, I do know for certain that Cardinals fans are baseball's best. I'm not questioning this for one minute. The only thing that confuses me is, well, forgive me here, I'm not quite sure how Cardinals fans became the best.

I had assumed it was because more of them go to baseball games that any other city. This seemed logical. But then I looked and saw that the Cardinals are actually fifth in attendance this year, which is good, don't get me wrong, please don't e-mail me, but unless my math is off, that doesn't make them the best.

So, I thought obviously this was just an off year for Cardinals fans. Hey, everybody is entitled to an off year. Harrison Ford has had a few lately. The only thing is, last year the Cardinals were actually sixth in attendance. And they were seventh the year before that.

At this pace, they will be No. 1 by 2007, which is quite good.

Still, the billboard doesn't say, "Looking forward to 2007, when we are projected to be baseball's best fans," or "Always among baseball's top 10 fans." And it also doesn't say "Baseball's best fans in 1987," which was the last time (and only time since 1970) the Cardinals actually led the major leagues in attendance.

So, obviously, there is something more subtle behind this whole "baseball's best fans," title, something that goes beyond those arbitrary and confusing "statistics," which merely show "how many fans show up."


Read the whole thing.

I first heard about this a few years ago when Peter Gammons brought it up at a Baseball Tonight meeting. I think it has to do with the number of fans per capita. Or maybe St. Louis just wants to be the best at something besides cheap, lousy beer. :-)


Posted by David Pinto at 02:14 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)