Bring the Marlins to Burque
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the Isotopes’ Major League affiliate isn’t exactly packin’ ‘em in the old ballpark football stadium. The attendance at yesterday’s game against the Washington Nationals was a whopping 400 warm bodies. Meanwhile, the AAA ‘Topes are stomping attendance records. At one game they jammed over 1,000 extra people in Isotopes Park.
I don’t pretend to know much about baseball as a business (except for right now), but I’d take a regular 7,000 fans over a fluctuating 1,000 to 16,000 fans. (Those attendance numbers for the Marlins are padded, too — they count tickets sold; not people attending.)
Look, Albuquerque isn’t exactly pint sized, and we aren’t a 33 gallon barrel either, but I think we can hang with the likes of Kansas City, Cleveland, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Louis, Tampa, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh — all cities with MLB teams; all cities smaller than Albuquerque. Ok, depending on where you draw the lines their metro areas might be bigger, but with the exception of the Florida cities, all the others are seeing their populations drop. Albuquerque? We’re rising, baby!
The short of it: let’s bring the Marlins home to Albuquerque. It makes sense. Baseball has a pretty darn long history in this town. In fact, I’m not sure a baseball anthology is complete without mentioning the Duke City. It is time we have a Major League team. Give us the call up!
Put the Marlins in Burque and I promise Burqueños will come out — we don’t have the humidity!
Just letting you know that I linked to your article.
Good Job.
Here it is.
Craig
FishStripes
Oh, hell no. Give me the cheap ass minor league tickets and a team I actually like ANY day. Seriously, what does it cost to get into the stadium? $5? And $17 for the luxury box? That’s what I’m talking about.
Bring the marlins to ALBQ. but keep the prices affordable.
I’m all for it too, should we call the the Rio Grande Silvery Minnows instead? Marlins won’t fit in the desert Southwest.
And do you propose that we still keep the Isotopes here as well?
@ Fitzerman and JT. I’m all for cheap quality baseball, but most Major League parks provide just that — $8 to $12 outfield bleachers/berms/nosebleeds. Really, that’s the only way experience a game.
@ Mario. Yeah, the Desert Southwest Marlin is a pretty rare species. I’m not sure what you’d call the team. Maybe we could put together enough scratch to buy back the Duke’s name?
@ FiveZeroFive. I’d suspect the Isotopes would pack their bags and look for another regional city. Not a bad thing. We’d get a MLB club and the AAA affiliate (assuming they’d still be our affiliate) would be in the neighborhood.