Gresh & Zo On: Legitimacy Of Red Sox Sellout Streak
Dan Shaughnessy joined Gresh & Zo to talk about the Red Sox's current home sellout streak. With the Sox out of the playoff hunt and the number of empty seats at Fenway, is this streak still legitimate?
Gresh: "Is there a bigger farce in the world of sports than the Red Sox sellout streak? It's the longest streak in baseball history and 2nd in North American sports. The longest streak belongs to the Portland Trailblazers with 744 games between 1977 and 1995. I don't understand the fascination with it. Do these kinds of things matter? It really doesn't and that's the part of it that's crazy. It becomes an issue when you can poke fun at it like we can right now. This streak is as fake as it gets. It's a time honored tradition in sports where you're going to fudge the numbers. I mean, did the Bruins really have 14,000 for the rookie game on the 2nd night? Probably not."
Zolak: "This is why you wanted to bring Johnny Damon back. This was one of the reasons, to rekindle some interest. If they were staying on course and were going to be out of it, then Damon would make people want to go to the ballpark. Texts are coming in all over the place, 'I was at the game last night and quite a few empty seats. Upper bleachers were maybe half full.' People want this streak to end so they can get on with other things. All college kids get half price tickets tonight so they must be working the schools."
Shaughnessy: "You can't tell me that this is legitimate and they're banging out attendance now. It's hard to imagine that Baltimore week nights were sold out in advance. It's a hard sell right now. I think they [Red Sox management] feel that they've gone too far into the year to kill it now when you know next spring on opening day it'll be in good shape again. It's a little phony right now to be clinging to that streak."
