When the Mets leased New York
I’ve been sitting on a recent article by Tyler Kepner in The New York Times because I haven’t had the time to finish all the research I’d intended for this post. The piece included an interesting statistic (and echoed some of what I wrote upon Andre Dawson’s induction): Kepner points out that, from 1979-83, the Montreal Expos ranked no lower than fourth in the National League in attendance. After watching the team’s demise at the beginning of this century because of a lack of fan interest, that is an eye-opening note to those of us who became baseball fans as children in the ’80s, because most of what we know in baseball has been about big markets drawing the fans while the small markets suffer — especially for those of us who grew up around the big markets like New York.
Team Attendance and MLB Rankings, 1979-90 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Expos | Rank | Mets | Rank | Yankees | Rank | |
1979 | 2,102,173 | 8 | 788,905 | 24 | 2,537,765 | 3 |
1980 | 2,208,175 | 7 | 1,192,073 | 19 | 2,627,417 | 3 |
1981 | 1,534,564 | 4 | 704,244 | 18 | 1,614,353 | 3 |
1982 | 2,318,292 | 4 | 1,323,036 | 18 | 2,041,219 | 7 |
1983 | 2,320,651 | 4 | 1,112,774 | 23 | 2,257,976 | 6 |
1984 | 1,606,531 | 17 | 1,842,695 | 11 | 1,821,815 | 12 |
1985 | 1,502,494 | 17 | 2,761,601 | 2 | 2,214,587 | 7 |
1986 | 1,128,981 | 24 | 2,767,601 | 2 | 2,268,030 | 7 |
1987 | 1,850,324 | 17 | 3,034,129 | 2 | 2,427,672 | 6 |
1988 | 1,478,659 | 22 | 3,055,445 | 1 | 2,633,701 | 5 |
1989 | 1,783,533 | 20 | 2,918,710 | 4 | 2,170,485 | 12 |
1990 | 1,373,087 | 23 | 2,732,745 | 4 | 2,006,436 | 14 |