The Royals have single-handedly vaulted themselves into a second place in the ejections race for the team title by getting rung thrice this week, giving them an overall ejection count of five, tied with the Dodgers, and still six behind the White Sox, who are running away with the title.  The AL continued to outpace the NL, widening the gap between the leagues to 13 ejections. The question that arises is whether the junior circuit is better at ejections or all star games than its senior counterpart. Only four teams drew fewer than 20,000 this week, with the Rays, White […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 8/7: Royals Ejected More ...

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With 14 ejections last week, we had a season high for players and managers getting tossed. Astonishingly, 12 of those 14 happened to the home team, and three games featured multiple ejections, with the Rangers having two tossed, the Giants having two, and the Blue Jays winning on the season with two players and a manager being ejected in a single game.  The season total of ejections crosses the 100 mark with the AL having an 11 ejection lead. This mirrors last year, which begs the question: Does the DH lead to hostility against umpires?   Onto attendance and stop […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 7/31: A New Season ...

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Triple digits in Kansas City this week was the highlight, the first 100 degree game outside of Phoenix this season. Especially impressive considering the game’s 7 PM start time.  Neither starting pitcher made it past the fifth, with the game eventually going ten and the sweaty Royals fans going home sweaty but happy after 4:10 of baseball.   The A’s joined the Rays as the only teams with a sub-10,000 attended game this year as they had 9,736 show up to their game against the, you guessed it, Tampa Bay Rays on Monday.  It turns out that a small fan […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 7/24: We Dog Days ...

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First off, apologies for the delay in the Below the Box Score for the past few weeks, I was out of the country. I’m sure you care. Besides, there was the all-star break in there, which makes this column pretty dull (unless someone gets ejected in the ASG!) Plenty of ejections over the past few weeks, nearing 100 on the season as the NL has narrowed the gap to just five behind the AL, 51-46. This was led by the D-backs, Reds, and Rockies all with a pair of ejections.   Attendance was once again stellar with nine below 20,000 […]

Below the Box Score, June 29-July 15: Catching Up!

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The ejection race between the two leagues had gotten close last week, but this week the defending champion American League ran away with an 7-2 week on the back of four Chicago White Sox ejections on the week.  Overall, ejections had a great week with Milwaukee having a bench player ejected in the top of the first for arguing that the Braves took too long to challenge a call (note: the Braves did not challenge the call at all), and John Farrell getting ejected in Boston after a dubious balk call, but only after he got his money’s worth.   […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 6/25/17: 7 AL Ejections, ...

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After a week off, this week gets back to setting a couple of new records on the season. The Rays and A’s were both on the road this week which meant overall attendance looked pretty good. Only the White Sox, Pirates, Twins, Padres, Phillies, and Marlins drew fewer than 20,000 in a single game last week with the White Sox and Padres averaging below the 20,000 mark.  For the first time since Opening Day, there were more teams that drew 40,000+ fans to a game than teams that drew fewer than 20,000 fans. The Rockies, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Angels, Reds, […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 6/19/17: More 40,000+ Games ...

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It’s 1998 all over again. Home runs are once again en vogue, with 2017 trending to have the most home runs in MLB history. It’s to the point where after last week’s bomb show by Scooter Gennett that many are offering odds on the next player to hit four home runs, with Nolan Arenado and Mike Trout listed as favorites. Unlike 1998, we likely won’t have to hear the testimony of current players in the next Balco scandal, as the distribution of home runs throughout the league is rising at a relatively level pace, not just a few monsters hitting 50+ home runs. […]

A Brief Look At All 231,877 Home Runs Since 1952

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After a week off, this week gets back to setting a couple of new records on the season. First off, the Rays had only 8,971 show up to a game this week, which is the first sub-9,000 attended game of the season and the lowest since the Indians drew 8,766 on May 4th of 2016. The Indians went on to the World Series, so maybe this is good luck for the Rays?  On Saturday, the Rays hosted the A’s in the first doubleheader played in Tropicana Field, a scheduled doubleheader. Those games drew 17,775 combined. The A’s, Reds, Mariners, and […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 6/12/17: A New Lowest ...

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Not nearly as much excitement as last week with no new superlatives recorded for the season in the past week. But we did have a relatively good week for attendance, as the Indians had the lowest attendance of the week but it was all the way over 14,000, which was the highest “lowest attendance of the week” so far this season. But the story of the week was clearly the ejections, with the Bryce Harper-Hunter Strickland fight contributing to the NL’s 6-1 stomping of the AL in ejections this week. This narrows the AL lead to only six ejections, 33-27. In […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 6/5: Attendance On The ...

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Nine more ejections this week. With all but one involving the away team, including multiple ejections for the Pirates, Athletics and Royals, it was a busy week in the away clubhouse. In other news, A NEW LOW ATTENDANCE RECORD FOR THE SEASON. The Rays managed only 9,014 to their Tuesday game against the Angels. That was 3,000 fewer fans than they had drawn on Monday night, their high on the week. They were joined in the sub-20k group by the Athletics, Orioles, Phillies, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Nationals, and defending AL Champion Indians. Of those, only the Rays, Athletics, Diamondbacks, […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 5/28/17: A Record Setting ...

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  With ten ejections last week, we have had our busiest week of the season for the umpires here in Below the Box Score. Capped off with two bench clearing brawls (Dodgers-Marlins and Yankees-Rays) that had three ejections apiece. The AL and NL split the ejections 5-5, keeping the AL in the lead on the season 27-17.   As mentioned, the Yankees were in Tampa this week which means that attendance for the Rays averaged over 20,000 on the full week, with not one single game below the 20,000 mark. The A’s, Mariners, Padres, Indians, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Pirates, and Twins […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 5/21/2017: Ejections Aplenty!

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It finally happened, over a month into the season, but we got our first sub-10,000 attended game of the year. And our second. And our third. THREE games this week were attended by four figure sums of fans as the Tampa Bay Rays hosted the Kansas City Royals in a four game series. Luckily for the Rays they got 12,000+ to their Monday game to bring their weekly average up to 10,352. Only six teams drew fewer than 20,000 this week, the aforementioned Rays, Athletics, Padres, White Sox, Marlins and Diamondbacks, with  only the White Sox and Diamondbacks averaging above […]

Below the Box Score, Week of 5/14/2017: First Sub-10k Game ...

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