Peter Angelos once took valuable time from running the Orioles organization into the ground, in order to assert that there are no baseball fans in Washington. The Nationals clearly have some attendance issues, but it’s worth pointing out that they’re not doing too badly thus far. Out of 30 teams, according to ESPN, the Nationals are averaging just under 30,000 per game, good for 15^th in the league. The Orioles are well back in 24^th place, at around 22,000. Looking at the average attendance over the past three years:

Year	Washington Nationals	Baltimore Orioles
2005	33,651	32,404
2006	26,582	26,583
2007	24,217	27,060
2005-2007 total	6,806,852	6,942,876
2008	29,957	22,168

The shape of the 2005-07 attendance figures (and that amazing equivalence in 2006) is somewhat similar, but 2008 so far seems to suggest teams going in opposite directions. And at the end of the month, the Nationals’ 10-17 record puts them on pace to win exactly 60 games, while the first-place Orioles look to be 24 games over .500 at 93-69. One can only wonder what the how much greater the attendance disparity would be if the Nationals could field a decent team and if the Orioles were not in first place.

Of course, the O’s attendance prospects will pick up in May and June, when they host Boston, since the Nation shows up in force at Camden Yards, generally making it seem like a Red Sox home game.

Happily, the national anthem at Nationals Park has been blissfully devoid of “O’s” on the last line. Surprisingly (at least to me), I’ve continued to hear that call during the anthem at Caps games. I’ve always thought we could safely say that there are no hockey fans in Baltimore.