Late last month, Major League Baseball touted its average attendance on a random Tuesday. It was, at first blush, a curious announcement, but notable enough: eight of the 15 games that day had drawn more than 36,000 fans. That was, according to MLB, the best non-holiday Tuesday since 2015 and the second best since 2008.
In an era of diminishing attention spans, myriad online distractions, and an enormous array of entertainment to choose from, stodgy baseball might just be having a renaissance. Attendance has surged 9% from last year, the largest single-year increase since 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, the steroid-addled sluggers, were shattering home run records. Declinist narratives have to be shelved, for the moment at least.
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