During my daily rounds of reading on the business of the sports world, I came across this article 'An empty feeling' about complaints of the Arizona Diamondbacks (or "D-Backs" officially, or D-Bags unofficially) being in 1st place for a while and fans not showing up / not packing the place. Well excuse me! This trend isn't exactly new. When a team hits 1st place in a long baseball season, we don't all just automatically drop whatever we're doing and head down the to ballpark!

After some initial research, $10-$15 for the crappiest seats in the house, with even somewhat tolerable seats ranging from $25 to $35, and anything closer ranging from $50 to $90 to $100 to $180 and parking will cost you anywhere around $10.

"Alas, attendance is a tricky subject in Arizona. Clearly, we're different out here, living in a place that would be inhospitable without air conditioning, and many bad decisions have been made based on conventional sporting wisdom. And even with the slight increase in warm bodies, the numbers are truly embarrassing."

Again, with a trip to the ballpark costing an arm and a leg amongst sitting hours in traffic, it's not exactly a picnic. And don't even bother showing up to the park hungry or thirsty.

"We'd all love to play in front of a huge crowd," Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder said. "But it's different here. You've got to prove yourself here."

You can prove yourself until your ass bleeds, but it still doesn't change the fact that there's much better entertainment values out there, not to mention 3 other pro teams, tho that's really stretching it with the Football Cardinals. If the Diamondbacks were smart, they'd use some of that money to buy up some theatres, malls, bars and shut them down!

More broadly, the lukewarm reception to the 2007 Diamondbacks has shed light on an uncomfortable subject: Is professional baseball a losing proposition in Arizona, the way it seems to be in Florida, the other spring training host?

Oh this again. Of course it is. Putting baseball in Phoenix, St. Petersburg & Miami were horrible decisions. Not to mention the team plays in the N.L. West, which has been a garbage division for a while now. And this article mentions some fans are staying away because of the new color scheme. You gotta be kidding me. The old purple, copper, teal and black was ungodly ugly and 1990s-ish. But buying the 2001 World Series was the worst thing they could have done to that team's fan base. They should have learned that from the 1997 Marlins. But no, they panicked. It'll take time before the area embraces the team. You need to play some more seasons, get a rival or two going, and get in some real pennant races. Otherwise shut up and play.