The presumption is that if you put a winning team on the field, your fans will elbow their way through the turnstiles.
Not in Cleveland.
The upstart Indians, considered before the season a sorry kennel of underdogs, have been keeping pace with the Detroit Tigers atop the American League Central.
Their fans, apparently, do not care or do not believe. The team has the poorest average attendance in Major League Baseball, at 16,813 fans per game.
It is not the stadium that is the problem. In 2008, Progressive Field was named America's fan-friendliest ballpark in a Sports Illustrated poll.
It isn't the franchise's legacy, either, that is the issue.
From 1995 to 2001, when the team was very good, the Indians sold out a then-record 455 consecutive home games. The current sorry situation reached a low point on Friday when a US$1 (Dh3.67) hot dog and post-game fireworks promotion drew 29,603 people, the season's third-largest crowd.
But the game was stopped by rain numerous times, delayed nearly five hours, and ended in a 9-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at 2.53am, long after most of the drenched crowd had gone home.
Mark Shapiro, the team president, apologised, we suppose, for Mother Nature's wrath and promised fans who kept their ticket stubs they would get a yet-to-be-determined reward.
You would think the reward would be a free pass to another ball game. In hard-to-please Cleveland, maybe not.
[ sports@thenational.ae ]
Follow us
[ @SprtNationalUAE ]