On the eighth day of D-backsmas, Ken Kendrick gave to me...

Until aricat popped in just after 6am this morning, there was just the one entry for the seventh day. But that may be because it proved impressively popular, setting a high number for recs received by any entry to date. Oldenschoole is duly enshrined into the carol, with the following suggestion:

Seven fans a'sitting.

Of course, this is slight literary exaggeration, as crowds at Chase Field never quite sunk into single digits. But they did come closer than ever before, reaching their nadir on July with a record new low attendance of 14,110. A perfect storm of circumstance combined to break the old mark: 15,509 against the Reds on August 18, 2010. It was the day after a holiday (which at the time, had given the team their largest crowd since Opening Day), we faced a deeply uninteresting last-place opponent in San Diego, and were already 16 games out of first place before the All-Star break. Add in the astonishingly wretched 14-31 home record at that point, and it’s probably more surprising fourteen thousand showed up. Or, at least, bought tickets.

The second-lowest mark was also set this season: 15,376 against the Braves on August 24. Though at least fans there got their money’s worth, seeing the longest D-backs victory of the year by time, a game which was a finalist in our Game of the Year voting. However, I do get the unfortunate feeling that the new record will not stand for more than five years. Last year is going to make season ticket sales, which typically form the core of attendance, a rather hard push for the team. If they struggle out of the gate in April, I suspect that we may see a number of equally small crowds.

Though I doubt we’ll trouble the smallest MLB crowd: which would be 0, for the Orioles-White Sox game played behind closed doors at Camden Yards in 2015. As for last year, a good candidate in terms of actual butts in seats would be the first game in a Twins-Tigers double-header in September, a contest restarted from the previous night, where estimates were around 300 attendees. In terms of announced attendance, it probably belongs to our expansion siblings in Tampa, whose average crowd was only a couple of hundred more than our record low before 2016. On April 13, they had just an announced crowd of 10,117 at Tropicana Field. Hopefully, things won’t be that bad at Chase in 2017.

On the eighth day of Xmas, Ken Kendrick gave to me...

• ___________________________ [Eight Maids a Milking]
• Seven fans a'sitting
• Six months of torture
• Five division rings
• Four robot umps
• Three Miller wins
• Two Cuban projects
• And a catcher you can have for free!

As usual, throw your suggestions into the comments and/or rec the ideas you feel most deserving of praise. The winner will be announced tomorrow.