As a transplanted Californian, I can’t get over the constant propagation of small-market references in regard to baseball, most recently by Bob Verdi (Tribune, Oct. 14). The San Francisco Bay Area is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., and the “small-market” Oakland A’s outdrew the “large-market” White Sox by more than 4,000 fans a game this season. Yet I don’t hear the Chicago press and Commissioner Bud Selig calling for contraction in Chicago or Milwaukee, which can’t even sell out with a new ballpark. The two Bay Area teams averaged a combined 67,000 compared to the Cubs’ and Sox’s 57,000.
Why not write about the lack of radio coverage of the playoffs in Chicago? Then again, I guess we should be used to that as the Chicago teams work extra hard not to make the playoffs.
