FanPost

Local paper emphasizes empty seats

Is there anything more upsetting to a sports fan than reading a story in which the assigned beat writer injects his own personal conjecture into the game coverage? Well that’s exactly what Houston Chronicle Dynamo beat writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz did with the opening line of the lead sports story in the Sunday May 19, 2013 edition of the Houston Chronicle which read as follows; "Even if there were about 4,000 empty seats in the announced sellout at BBVA Compass Stadium, the fans deserved a better performance than what they saw Saturday night." In one fell swoop, the Dynamo beat writer threw the Houston Dynamo and its fans under the bus. Not only does it seem that Ortiz is calling Dynamo management liars for saying they had a sellout when there were some empty seats in the stadium but it appears the Chronicle through this writer are deliberately attempting to continuously discredit the winningest sports franchise in Houston over the last seven years. Ortiz’ statement gave more attention to the empty seats than to the 22.039 loud, boisterous and supportive fans in attendance as announced by the Dynamo. But to be fair and balanced let’s suppose that Ortiz was correct and that BBVA Compass Stadium had 4,000 empty seats. The math says that 82 percent of the stadium was full which is nearly double what the Astros (46.7%) are averaging per game. If the stadium had 20,000 in attendance the stadium was 90 percent full. One can only wonder how Ortiz determined there were approximately 4,000 empty seats nor did he ever explain how those empty seats affected the outcome of the game? Possibly Ortiz couldn’t tell us Ortiz didn’t tell us because he was too busy counting empty orange seats rather then paying serious attention to the play on the pitch. In the same edition of the Chronicle buried on page six was a photo by Cody Duly of an entire section of empty seats at Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros. Neither the accompanying article nor the photo cutline contain a statement similar to the opening statement of the Dynamo story. Considering that the Astros are the worst team in Major League baseball and on track to record a third consecutive 100 loss season, maybe the following should have been included in the article or photo cutline; "Even if there were (you fill in the number) empty seats at Minute Maid Park, the fans deserved a better performance than what they saw." Unfortunately at no time in recent history has that statement been used with regard to the Astros, Rockets, Texans, or even the now departed Aeros, so why the Dynamo The Astros currently rank 26th out of 30 teams in overall MLB attendance this season. They are on pace to draw 100,000 less fans than the 1.6 million that came through the turnstiles in 2012. With an average attendance of 19,165, the Houston Astros can’t even fill BBVA Compass Stadium. It’s time the Chronicle and their sports writer start supporting a team that has played in four title games in seven years winning two of them and are favored to win it all again in 2013. And oh yeah if they play for the title in December, it will be their third consecutive trip the finals.

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