I don't know if this is the answer you're looking for, but I think that girls league of their own during WWII played some games there under temp lighting- their World Series or an All-Star game maybe?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Yup, it was the girls AS game!

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You can get a lot of people thinking the first night game was 8-8-88

Eh, I think (at least I would hope) a lot of real Cub fans know that that game was rained out.

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Les Lancaster was so drunk he pissed himself but did slip-n-slides on the field to cover it up.

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WSJ should stick to covering wall street.

The Cubs played a game starting at 5 oclock in the 40s I believe it's in a book but I left it at work which under most definitions would be a night game.

There's a participle dangling off the edge of a fucking cliff in that sentence.

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Do 10,000 Cubs fans show up to road games in San Diego because they like Wrigley Field.

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Kenny Williams fell for the banana in the tailpipe

10,000 Cubs fans don't show up in San Diego. Cub fans couldn't even fill Wrigley for a Sox game yesterday.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

I wonder what the attendance would have been at the Cell NATO weekend? 20k? Maybe?

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Are you really blaming NATO for the weak attendance? There wasn't a sign of NATO anywhere near the park and every highway had lighter traffic than I have ever seen. Your excuses are your own. Attendance is down.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Um....for yesterday's game? Yes. It is the only reason I didn't go. I take 55 to lakeshore to get to every game. That wasn't gonna be too feasible yesterday.

I agree. Let's look at some actual numbers that support that:

AVG home attendance:

Cubs
2011: 37, 258
2012: 37, 101

Sox
2011: 24, 705
2012: 20, 295


I look forward to your explanation about how those numbers don't mean anything other than baseball is more popular than football.

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Here's your explanation: In this day and age the numbers the clubs give you don't mean a fucking thing. There are secondary and tertiary markets and the teams themselves are participating. When the Cubs ship a seat over to Premium does it count as paid attendance? I can tell you how weak the real market on the street was yesterday. The Cubs could call that game a sellout if they wanted to.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Awesome.

Has nothing to do with the numbers I posted, but awesome none the less.

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It has everything to do with the numbers you posted. The teams can say whatever they want. The numbers you posted aren't real. If the Cubs move 5000 tickets to Premium (owned by the Cubs) those 5000 go into your "paid attendance figures". Whether they are ever actually sold to a customer is unknown. I can tell you that an $80 bleacher ticket wasn't hard to find for fifty bucks yesterday. That's real.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Cool.

So who are the 4k+ people that the Sox aren't selling to this year that they were selling to last year?

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It looks like attendance is about the same as it was last year. The Sox do much better after May is over.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Agree. All teams do.

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So you don't think Sox attendance is actually down?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

say a team averages 25k a game...and the average ticket is 25$ ...and each ticket brings in another 10$ for concessions .....that is 875k a game....times 81 hoe games = 70 million plus....with the t.v. revenue and merchandising i am not sure how any team can cry poor.

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No. I think it's down right now - just like JORR said, only he was saying it about the Cubs. It's just down quite a bit more than the Cubs is.

I agree that both teams attendance numbers will go up when school is out - just like they do pretty much every year for every team.

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Then you don't agree with me. White Sox attendance only looks below average because they sold a lot of seats in June and beyond that raised the average up. It would be like saying after opening day that White Sox attendance is way up this year.

The Sox were probably 4k down last year too at this time looking at the attendance for each game in April and May.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So you don't agree with JORR then? He said attendance is down.

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I didn't look at the Cubs early season attendance last year. He seems to be arguing that the Cubs are playing games with attendance numbers though.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He said "attendance is down". That seems like a clear statement.

It may be, but if so the situation is far worse on the SS then. I agree with you, numbers will improve when school is out - like they always do.

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I think all teams play games with the attendance numbers. I think there's a greater imperative for the Cubs to do so though. Part of the appeal is that it's supposedly a "tough ticket". I can see that a guy who comes in from Huntley, Illinois for one or two games a year might think so. You can park on the street for free a block away from where people are paying $30 and $50 to park. They just don't know any better.

On a somewhat related note, the Cubs are pioneers at scalping their own tickets. That's also something all teams do now, but the Cubs have it down pat. It's in the interest of the teams to not have a clear pricing structure. They want it to be like an airplane flight where no one is actually sure what the actual price is or if there really is a standard price. The two bleacher tickets I bought yesterday had different face values.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Call me 'suspicious' at this statement.

_________________

The two tickets didn't even look the same. I think one of them had a picture of Steve Stone on it.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Basically to remove the beams that create obstructed views and eliminate falling concrete dangers, the whole upper-deck must be torn down and reconstructed. To do all the improvements they want to the clubhouses and for the new batting cages to be constructed under the stands, they almost have to totally tear the ground level apart too. The only thing that probably will remain the same, is the marquee and the Bleachers (which were reconstructed just a few years back when they were expanded. As long as they are doing this much, they might as well tear it all down and build something like Miller Park, with a retractable roof. That would be great for early spring games when it's cold, eliminate rain-outs and make it possible to use the ballpark for a greater number of other events. Plus, they could make the field (with slightly more space in foul territory) long enough for football games (college) to be played there on occassion. Might as well do it right.

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Go Cubs!!!!