ShareThisIt's not just the economy.
It's not just that silly World Baseball Classic, which proves nothing, except that the greedy suits that run baseball always can find ways to put a few more bucks in their coffers.
Yes, they're factors, the sick economy and bogus WBC.
Significant factors.
But there are other reasons, too, for the noticeable decrease in attendance at spring-training games in our part of Florida -- reasons that have more to do with emotions than economics.
First, there's the desertion of Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla., which, across 61 mostly magnificent years, became America's quintessential spring-training town. Not only did the Los Angeles Dodgers move west, taking their camp to Arizona, but then the Baltimore Orioles spent a year jerking around our local officials before deciding our offer wasn't rich enough.
And this saga has left many baseball fans where I work, especially those in Indian River County, feeling used and abandoned.
"Unfortunately," one Vero Beach reader wrote, "spring training, which was a wonderful experience in another era, has just become another corporate spectacle to extract money from willing victims."
Others -- via e-mail, letters, phone calls and online comments -- were so upset with all that transpired, from the classless way the Dodgers departed to the shabby manner in which the Orioles' negotiated, that they said they'd never go to spring training again.
Anywhere.
To them, a special time of year in a very special place was no longer special at all.
Another intangible reason for the drop in attendance this spring isn't quite as local -- The Steroid Era.
The shameful cheating scandal that infected a once-great game has turned off many fans, particularly those in their 50s through 80s, folks who were raised with the nostalgic concepts of fair play and sportsmanship and now mourn the death and dearth of honor.
These fans remember the men who achieved greatness legitimately, Hall-of-Fame players such as Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver.
They remember the records, which once were as much a part of Americana as the Fourth of July doubleheader: Aaron's 755 home runs, Williams' .406 batting average, Roger Maris' 61 homers in '61.
Too many of those records -- those memories -- have been erased by a generation of frauds whose numbers came out of a bottle. A trust was broken. A connection was lost. And many older fans feel betrayed.
"I have lost all respect for the players, the owners and that guy sitting up in his high chair (commissioner Bud Selig) letting this go on," wrote one of the dozens of readers who said they've given up on baseball. "I could care less about all of them. I will not pay a dime to go see a game. Even if tickets are given to me, I would not go. They have destroyed the greatest game we had."
Clearly, not everyone feels that way, as thousands still flock to ballparks all around the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues.
But the attendance numbers are down around around here -- for the New York Mets in Port St. Lucie, for the Florida Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter.
The suits blame the economy, because they can't bad-mouth their ill-conceived WBC. Both, however, are factors. But they're not the only factors.
For many folks, spring training isn't what it used to be. Or should be. Neither is baseball.
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
