eBay Item Of The Day
To celebrate the opening of the 2011 postseason, here’s a ticket from the very first intra-league playoff game in history, Minnesota at Baltimore on October 3, 1969. You’ll notice the ticket is unused. There were lots of empty seats at that game, although the 39,324 the Orioles attracted was still higher than any crowd they’d gotten all year.
It’s hard to fathom now how crappy baseball attendance was in this period. Baltimore drew a total fo 15,000 fans for its final home series (three games against Detroit) - and this was for a team that was sitting on 108 wins at the time. Earlier in the month, they’d had an eight-game home stand that included eight straight wins - and they averaged just 10,000 per date. They barely cleared 1,000,000 for the season, but that was still good enough for fifth in the 12-team American League.
As for Game 1, the O’s won it in a most un-Earl Weaver-like fashion in the home 12th. Mark Belanger hit an infield single to lead off, was sacrificed to second, advanced to third on a ground-out and scored on a Paul Blair bunt.
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