“(Shohei) Ohtani has a real chance to hit 62 homers and tie Aaron Judge’s less-than-a-year-old American League record, and we’re hardly talking about it enough.” Mike Petriello does something about that on MLB.com.
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A STICKY SITUATION
The Angels and MLB head to court this week amid a sticky situation, as the long-time visiting clubhouse manager in Anaheim has sued his former employer and the league for defamation.
NEWCOMER MAKES A GIANT IMPACT
A young Giants catcher is drawing comparisons to Pudge Rodriguez and Thurman Munson. Gabe Lacques of USA Today has the story of 24-year-old Patrick Bailey, for whom “Everything is top of the charts.”
On Opening Day 2022, it was Joey Bart who was being hailed as Buster Posey’s heir behind the plate in San Francisco. But after failing to establish himself as a big leaguer during parts of the last 4 seasons, Bart is at Triple-A Sacramento, batting .219 with a .657 OPS.
HEAD COUNT’S ON THE RISE
There are a lot of great attendance stories across Major League Baseball in 2023.
Average attendance league-wide (28,718) is up nearly 2,500 fans per game from this time last season, with 25 of the 30 clubs showing increases as we move another year beyond the worst of Covid, and fans respond positively to new pace-of-play initiatives that have been implemented by MLB.
16 of the 30 clubs are averaging more than 30,000 per game. 25 of the 30 are averaging in excess of 20,000. And all but the Marlins and the historically bad and potentially soon-to-be-abandoning-Oakland Athletics are drawing more than 16,000 per game on average.
There is this bit of good news for the Marlins: While they will finish last in the NL and last or next-to-last in MLB again—as they have every year with fans since Bruce Sherman bought the club after the 2017 season, they have a chance to draw one million fans to loanDepot park this year for the first time on Sherman’s watch. Before Sherman bought the team, the Marlins had drawn fewer than one million only once in their history, in 2002. They entered 2023 having done so in each of the last 4 seasons in which fans were permitted into ballparks.
Of the many MLB attendance success stories—including the Phillies being up nearly 11,000 per game and the Guardians, Blue Jays, Rangers and Reds all seeing their per-game average jump more than 5,000 from this time last year—what the Rockies are doing amid a dreadful season says a lot about their fan base.
The Marlins have not drawn 36,000 for any game in 6 years under the current ownership.
THE GAME THAT’S SWEEPING THE NATION
It’s the game that’s taking the baseball world by storm. If you have yet to try Immaculate Grid, what are you waiting for? A new grid is available daily on Baseball-Reference.com.
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ICYMI
In honor of my 100th VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS post last week, I ran a 2-part series in which I unlocked the VFTB archives to give newcomers to the site and free subscribers the chance to read some of my most widely-read posts over the last 4 months.
Part 1 of our Geffcentennial celebration ran Thursday, and Part 2 ran yesterday.
While you’re here…
Learn more about one-on-one play-by-play coaching from Glenn Geffner via Zoom at glenngeffner.com.
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Glenn Geffner's View from the Bleachers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
