Lew Wolff laments lack of A’s attendance

I never thought I’d agree with Lew Wolff. I never thought I’d be happy to hear him open his mouth.

But the embattled A’s owner finally reacted to the noticeably small crowds at O.co Coliseum, despite the fact his team is in first place in the AL West and counting down the days until they celebrate their second-straight division title.

Wolff told USA Today Sports’ Bob Nightengale:

“There is something wrong here. You were think that with our lead, people would want to come out, count down the magic numbers and all that stuff.”

Wolff continued:

“Even if you’re not a loyal fan, you would think this time of year, where the teams are in the standings, and where every game means something, people would come out.”

The A’s shaved six games off their magic number over the weekend in Texas, yet the A’s returned home to a downright embarrassing crowd of 14,629.

Wolff didn’t hold anything back when commenting on the attendance numbers:

“It’s depressing. I really expected the crowds to be huge this week. I had a player come up to me and say, ‘I feel sorry for you, Mr. Wolff.'”

The A’s saw a slight uptick in attendance on Tuesday night, but still not good enough for a team about to win the division.

It’s confusing. A’s fans won’t show up for regular season games when ticket prices are reasonable, but they bought up all the tickets for the upcoming American League Division Series, forcing the A’s to remove the tarps from the third deck for the series. The capacity for the playoffs will be 48,145.

For once, I’m on Lew Wolff’s side here. It’s downright depressing what A’s fans are doing.

I have a hard time defending A’s fans when they won’t come out during the regular season but will emerge en masse for the playoffs. The A’s shouldn’t have removed the tarps from the upper deck. A’s fans don’t deserve it.

Lew Wolff and the A’s deserve better.

I can’t believe I just wrote that.