Road Rage
The NY Times irritates and alienates Yankee fans with this uncritical recycling of dubious statistics:
The Red Sox are baseball's biggest roadside attraction. On its tour through 12 cities, the self-styled posse of scruffy idiots is leading Major League Baseball in road attendance, a category the Yankees have won the last three seasons.
...Through Wednesday's games, Boston's 56 road dates averaged 38,673 in attendance, more than the Yankees' 38,140 average in 51 games. The Yankees have the record for road attendance, 3.3 million, set last year.
Oh, stop it! The Red Sox road attendance includes six sell-outs at 55,000 seat Yankee Stadium; the Yankees' figure includes six sell-outs at 35,000 seat Fenway Park.
Adjust for that, and the Yankees are still the best show in The Show.
Adjust how? For the Yankees, (38,140 * 51 - 35,000 x 6) / 45 = 38,559 attendance at non-Fenway road games.
For the Red Sox, (38,673 * 56 - 55,000 * 6)/50 = 36,714 at non-Stadium road games.
Put another way, the Yankees draw *less* than their road average at cozy Fenway; the Red Sox draw way more than their road average at the Big House.
An alternative adjustment might be to split the difference - assume equal attendance in the two parks by adding (6 x 20,000) to the Yankee attendance at Fenway and dividing by 51. This increases the Yankee figure by 2,353 to 40,493 - way ahead of the Red Sox.
But you also need to account for the fact that 3 of the Yankees "road" games were played at Shea.
For the Yankees, (38,140 * 51 - (35,000 x 6) - (55K x 3)) / 42 = 37,384 attendance at non-Fenway road games played outside the NYC city limits.
The Yanks are still tops, but the margin of victory is getting tighter. And they still have to make 2 more trips to Tampa Bay.
Posted by: SaveFarris | August 05, 2005 at 11:16 AM
The Times' incompetence is not bounded by mere partisanship.
Good catch.
Posted by: Crank | August 05, 2005 at 11:17 AM
How about a statistic that measured unfilled seats during road games (capacity - attendance). With this metric, lower would be better and teams wouldn't be penalized for playing in small stadiums on the road.
Both the Yankees and Red Sox would get 0 for their games in the other's parks.
Posted by: richard | August 05, 2005 at 02:01 PM
Actualy right now the Cardinals are the best show, but I understand brand loyalty.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor | August 05, 2005 at 02:18 PM
Just wait until Beltran gets hot, then you will see the Mets move ahead of the Red Sox and the Yankees! [/sarcasm]
Posted by: Al | August 05, 2005 at 05:54 PM
(ahem) Another 86 years!
Posted by: Steven J. | August 05, 2005 at 08:59 PM
I'll point out that the Yankees managed to come up with the best overall road attendance in prior years in the unadjusted numbers. So in any case, the Yankees are doing worse and the Red Sox are doing better. (Met fan - no dog in the hunt.)
Posted by: Devin McCullen | August 05, 2005 at 10:22 PM
(Met fan - no dog in the hunt.)
No dog at all.
Posted by: Steven J. | August 06, 2005 at 06:28 AM
For another example of the press misinterpreting attendance stats, see King Kaufman's latest column on Salon.
Posted by: Ben Z. | August 06, 2005 at 02:48 PM
Of course the Yankees draw less than their road average at Fenway - it's the smallest park in baseball. If Boston's home capacity is about 34,000, maybe 35,000 tops with lots of SRO, that's still about 10,000 less than the AL average.
Posted by: Xavier | August 07, 2005 at 08:40 AM
Ah, you're just sore about a certain 6'-10" southpaw's pitching perfomance(s) this season. Maybe Johnson can get a few outs when he faces the KC Royals.
Posted by: Boardjones | August 07, 2005 at 10:09 AM