The Real Surprise: People are Going to Mets Games (Updated Article)

BY SAM SMITH

Nate Silver's blogpost on the New York Times website expresses disbelief that the Mets have endured an attendance drop in 2011. Well, the fool is oblivious, I say!

The Mets are far worse at this point in the season than they were at the same point in the season last year. The new ballpark awe has worn off and the Mets are again competing in a division with 3 teams considerably better than them. If there is anything to be shocked about, it's that the Mets are still getting 30,000 fans to show up to their games on a nightly basis. They remain in the Top 10 of attendance by capacity filled and Top 12 of attendance by turnout in the Majors, out selling the A.L best Cleveland Indians by over 10 thousand people a game!

If there is any story worth reporting in the Mets attendance statistics, it's that people are still paying good money to sit around and watch the Mets lose home game after home game- throwing away leads late in the game, squandering opportunities with runners on and making costly errors against rivals. There are hundreds of things worth spending money on in New York, so my kudos is to my fellow Mets fans, for still coming out by the tens of thousands to let the Mets break their hearts and eat their wallets.

My only explanation for the fact that fans are attending these games is that the Mets play in New York. No other city in the nation is even close to as big. If the Mets were playing anywhere else, they would not get 30K fans attending each game. Only in a city as massive as New York will a team as terrible as the Mets find that many people to attend a game.