numbers

Stumbled across some figures on ballparkdigest.com that caught the eye. The Mississippi Braves, in their fifth season at $30 million Trustmark Park, drew a paid (tickets sold) average of 2,996 fans per game in 2009. That ranked 105th out of 176 minor league clubs this year, according to the Web site’s data. The Atlanta Braves pulled their Double-A club out of Greenville, S.C., where it had resided since 1984, after protracted haggling over the building of a new ballpark there. They moved to Pearl, where the TeePee was built for them, and drew a paid 3,847 the first year, 2005. That seemed promising. Smith-Wills Stadium never drew anything like that during the 25 years (1975-1999) of Double-A baseball there. But the TeePee attendance figure has dropped each year since. And the 2,997 figure of this past season includes a lot of tickets that were never used. The actual average might have been closer to 2,000 per game, which is awfully close to what the old Jackson Generals drew in their best season (1,866 in 1996). Hmmm. Didn’t the Generals leave (for greener pastures in Texas) because of poor attendance? And here’s another number to ponder: 4,857. That’s what the new Greenville, S.C., club (a Boston Red Sox low A team) drew in the ballpark that was built there soon after the Braves left.