Thursday, October 23, 2014

Is Kansas City a good baseball town?

The Kansas City Royals are tied with the San Francisco Giants 1-1 in the Major Baseball League (MBL) finals, still called the World Series by most who have not noticed that the American and National Leagues merged 15 years ago.

George Brett  1990 by SW
via MissouriStateArchives
 via Wikimedia Commons
We're hearing ad nauseam that Kansas City is a good, maybe great, baseball town.  The Royals are an expansion team created in 1969.   The Royals were preceded by the Athletics, on their way from Philadelphia to Oakland, who played in Kansas City from 1955 through 1967; best finish: 1966 74-86 7th of 10.  Before 1955 there was minor league ball: Monarchs of the Negro leagues and Blues, the top Yankee affiliate.

The Royals have won one championship: 1985.  Since then through 2013 here are the Royals averages and rank among the 30 current MBL teams, several of which were added after 1969:

regular season rank in division: 4 (29) ahead of Pittsburgh 4.2
wins: 73 (30) last
attendance: 1,741,858 (26) ahead of both Florida teams, Pittsburgh and Montreal/Washington.

Data (from the Lahman database) sorted by attendance:


FranchiseTeamRankWinsAttendance
LADLAN2.61833,193,218
COLCOL3.81752,999,984
NYYNYA2.25902,996,145
STLSLN2.50852,959,086
BALBAL3.96752,618,440
ANAANA2.93822,611,416
BOSBOS2.61872,601,394
CHCCHN3.89762,589,120
ARIARI2.75812,526,410
TORTOR3.14812,523,975
NYMNYN3.14812,519,524
SFGSFN2.57842,500,752
ATLATL2.32872,449,924
PHIPHI3.04802,431,756
TEXTEX2.82812,419,348
SEASEA3.68772,220,133
HOUHOU3.07792,184,081
CLECLE3.25802,101,841
CINCIN3.11802,098,691
SDPSDN3.54772,075,553
MILMIL3.93772,047,661
MINMIN3.21782,015,759
DETDET3.36762,009,110
CHWCHA2.71811,978,765
OAKOAK2.39851,834,916
KCRKCA3.96721,741,858
PITPIT4.21741,680,263
FLAFLO3.86751,630,363
WSNMON3.64771,541,527
TBDTBA3.81751,515,268

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