What's up with Attendance?

[MemorialStadKid]

Wow, look how "dangerous" ARTscape is...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qfi58KZxntc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So, so dangerous...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0oPFXkQo67Q?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

THE HORROR!!!!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KH6Pv2kwIwQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Fear is a mind-killer.

MSK

[Winning_Season]

"Too dark" or the crime rate is higher there? Or maybe the "cultural gems" in those areas don't appeal to everyone else.

And one day when you have a family you may understand why families don't want to risk everything to venture to areas that are not completely safe. You call it "living" families call it "unnecessary risk."

This is an unfourtunate and all to common mindset in society. If we are being realistic you are far more likely to die driving on the interstate from the suburbs to Baltimore than walking through the "rough parts" from your parking spot to OPACY

[Uli2001]

I honestly wonder if we're seeing the after effects of the riots.

Nah, the Orioles had been playing badly until this past week and the NYY have been mediocre the past few seasons.

[Going Underground]

This is all making a negative assumption based on the demographics of an area or who the audience is for a particular event.

ARTscape is one of the safest events in town and tends to attract all kinds of people from Baltimore and the surrounding counties.

Let's speak frankly here, it sounds like you're equating these events with "black street thugs" and that's completely unfair. How can anyone take an "unnecessary risk" if you attend a cultural event of music, art and fashion? (I'm also speaking of AFRAM).

If the majority of people attending these events are working-class to middle-class, where's the risk?

What makes you think I DON'T have a family? I was born and raised in Baltimore, spending a good chunk of time between Waverly (33rd street and Westerwald) and the Sandtown-Winchester area that was directly impacted by the unfortunate uprising. I know those neighborhoods, who lives there and (most important) who doesn't live there.

In any case, getting back to the point, there is tremendous fear-mongering out there based on race and class and sadly, too many fall into the trap of fear and not applying logic or reason to a situation. This fear has had a measurable impact on Orioles attendance, but I feel that you might see a spike in July and August when more families are actually free for vacations.

MSK

But it is only a game or some event and if people don't feel safe they won't go.Perceived risk or actual risk some people, won't go.Miss a concert or event and most people won't be too upset.You can tell people it is safe but if they have fears they will not go. We shall see what happens to convention business over the next few years. Many cities competing for these and if people think another city does not come with the same trepidation, they will go to another city.

[DrungoHazewood]

But it is only a game or some event and if people don't feel safe they won't go.Perceived risk or actual risk some people, won't go.Miss a concert or event and most people won't be too upset.You can tell people it is safe but if they have fears they will not go.

To me it's frustrating that we live, by many measures, in the safest period in human history but there seems to be this pervasive fear of everything and everyone. It's the ADT commercial with a white, suburban housewife doing the laundry in her mini-mansion in, say, Manassas, and being constantly menaced by burglars, never to feel safe unless she spends thousands on a security system. Yet that security system is most likely have a false alarm-to-real intruder ratio over its life of infinity. People are just not good at weighing the risks of very low likelihood events.

[eddie83]

The upcoming Indians series should do well. Fireworks night, Buck garden gnome night on Saturday then dugout club plus hat day on Sunday. I hope it does better than this past Yankees series.

[Going Underground]

To me it's frustrating that we live, by many measures, in the safest period in human history but there seems to be this pervasive fear of everything and everyone. It's the ADT commercial with a white, suburban housewife doing the laundry in her mini-mansion in, say, Manassas, and being constantly menaced by burglars, never to feel safe unless she spends thousands on a security system. Yet that security system is most likely have a false alarm-to-real intruder ratio over its life of infinity. People are just not good at weighing the risks of very low likelihood events.

We have the politicians talk about the good old days. It is pandering. More older people vote and people are always nostalgic for the good old days.

The death rate from wars was way higher in the 1930's thru the 1950's.

The infant mortality rate is so much lower.

Food safety and car safety is better.

Kids were working in coal mines .

So many more cures for what killed you before

African Americans with separate everything

No ice boxes

So many more things but people remember the good old days mostly how good it was.

[El Gordo]

To me it's frustrating that we live, by many measures, in the safest period in human history but there seems to be this pervasive fear of everything and everyone. It's the ADT commercial with a white, suburban housewife doing the laundry in her mini-mansion in, say, Manassas, and being constantly menaced by burglars, never to feel safe unless she spends thousands on a security system. Yet that security system is most likely have a false alarm-to-real intruder ratio over its life of infinity. People are just not good at weighing the risks of very low likelihood events.

That's not by accident. It encourages us to accept more "security measures".

[Big Al]

Could it be that since we have become a contender, MFY and Sox fans don't want to spend the money to come south when there is a better chance they'll see their team on the losing end of the score?

[Can_of_corn]

Could it be that since we have become a contender, MFY and Sox fans don't want to spend the money to come south when there is a better chance they'll see their team on the losing end of the score?

I think it is more the Red Sox fans not coming out because the Red Sox are bad then because the Orioles are good.

[DrungoHazewood]

We have the politicians talk about the good old days. It is pandering. More older people vote and people are always nostalgic for the good old days.

The death rate from wars was way higher in the 1930's thru the 1950's.

The infant mortality rate is so much lower.

Food safety and car safety is better.

Kids were working in coal mines .

So many more cures for what killed you before

African Americans with separate everything

No ice boxes

So many more things but people remember the good old days mostly how good it was.

I was reading something about the 24 hours LeMans car race over the weekend. I believe it's the 60th anniversary of a wreck during that race where a car went into the crowd and killed between 80 and 130 people (the French government never released the official total). Almost no barriers or protective devices were present except for bails of straw, and people watched from literally a few feet away from cars going 120 mph. The press of the time seemed to almost treat it as just one of those things that happened. You go to a car race, you might die.

[OFFNY]

We have the politicians talk about the good old days. It is pandering. More older people vote and people are always nostalgic for the good old days.

The death rate from wars was way higher in the 1930's thru the 1950's.

The infant mortality rate is so much lower.

Food safety and car safety is better.

Kids were working in coal mines .

So many more cures for what killed you before

African Americans with separate everything

No ice boxes

So many more things but people remember the good old days mostly how good it was.

Outstanding post.

...... Because the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems ......

Billy Joel, 1983

[MemorialStadKid]

To me it's frustrating that we live, by many measures, in the safest period in human history but there seems to be this pervasive fear of everything and everyone. It's the ADT commercial with a white, suburban housewife doing the laundry in her mini-mansion in, say, Manassas, and being constantly menaced by burglars, never to feel safe unless she spends thousands on a security system. Yet that security system is most likely have a false alarm-to-real intruder ratio over its life of infinity. People are just not good at weighing the risks of very low likelihood events.

I don't want to get into political stuff, but I would like to recommend a great book that discusses this situation at great length.

Mods, if I happen to violate any rules with this post, obviously feel free to delete immediately.

The book is called THE CULTURE OF FEAR, written by UCLA sociology professor Barry Glassner. It's definitely worth a read and it breaks down the fear-mongering in U.S. society on a deep level.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362

This is from the back cover of the book:

In the age of 9/11, the Iraq War, financial collapse, and Amber Alerts, our society is defined by fear. So it's not surprising that three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today then they did twenty years ago. But are we living in exceptionally dangerous times? In The Culture of Fear, sociologist Barry Glassner demonstrates that it is our perception of danger that has increased, not the actual level of risk. Glassner exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our fears, including advocacy groups that raise money by exaggerating the prevalence of particular diseases and politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime, drug use, and terrorism. In this new edition of a classic book more relevant now than when it was first published, Glassner exposes the price we pay for social panic.

MSK

[Dark Helmet]

I talked to a lot of people after the riots, that said they would not venture to Baltimore for awhile. The statistics might be 1 in whatever, but no one wants to be that 1.

[weams]

I talked to a lot of people after the riots, that said they would not venture to Baltimore for awhile. The statistics might be 1 in whatever, but no one wants to be that 1.

I talked with 40,000 fans the other day who felt otherwise.