Thursday’s Hot Clicks: Absolutely No One Went to the Pirates-Marlins Game

Paltry crowds at Marlins games are nothing new, but this one was in Pittsburgh!

Justin Berl/Getty Images

Anybody home?

The Marlins are used to playing in front of paltry crowds down in Miami, but the one they saw last night in Pittsburgh rivaled even the most pitiful ones. 

The Pirates and Marlins actually played an exciting game, capped a Bryan Reynolds walk-off single in the ninth, but nobody was there to see it. 

Here’s what the stands looked like as the teams prepared for first pitch. 

And the seats didn’t fill in much as the game went along. Check out all the empty chairs in these photos. 

Justin Berl/Getty Images

Justin Berl/Getty Images

You can also peruse MLB’s highlight package and see that those pictures are representative of the whole ballpark.

This angle of Reynolds’s walk-off really drives the point home, though. 

The official attendance for the game was 9,043, which would have been 24% of PNC Park’s capacity. But there couldn’t have been more than, what, 1,000 people actually in the stands? That’s unbelievable. 

I understand that it’s a school night and these are two of the worst teams in baseball but that’s embarrassing. It was a beautiful 76-degree night and the ballpark is right downtown. You couldn’t find some way to convince people to sit outside after work and enjoy one of the last nice nights of the year? The Orioles are running a promotion this month where you pay $30 for access to every game at Camden Yards for all of September. Their first homestand of the month starts tonight and I guarantee they’ll have more butts in the seats than Pittsburgh did. 

But this is what happens when teams stop treating sports like an entertainment product and only care about trying to win a championship five years from now. Pirates management hasn’t given fans a reason to come out to the ballpark and fans have behaved accordingly. Pittsburgh’s average attendance is fifth-worst in baseball this year. 

At least there was no traffic. 

Antonio Brown finally found a helmet

So here’s the helmet Antonio Brown is going to wear this season after spending all summer trying to get the NFL to let him wear his old one. 

It’s not just the forced perspective of that photo—this thing is really huge. It looks like a damn spaceship, and Brown’s teammates couldn’t help but crack jokes at his expense. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.