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Some thoughts and information about attendance and tickets...
The Cubs had their smallest paid attendance of the 2012 season Friday, 31,255. According to this comment posted in Friday's recap, that's the smallest paid crowd on a summer Friday (between Memorial Day and Labor Day) since September 3, 1999. There were about 26,000 in the house, by my estimate.
Total announced attendance for 59 dates is now 2,174,285, an average of 36,852. That would bring the Cubs just short of three million for the season. I'll have more on this at the end of the homestand.
More interesting is an email that I (and I assume some other season ticket holders) received Friday, stating, in part:
We are pleased to announce an exclusive Chicago Cubs Season Ticket Holder offer to enjoy a game in the Budweiser Patio at a reduced rate. We have reserved a limited number of tickets for Cubs Season Ticket Holders in the Budweiser Patio for the Sunday, September 2 game vs. the San Francisco Giants at 1:20 p.m.
Tickets in the Budweiser Patio for this game are normally $215, but through this exclusive Season Ticket Holder offer, you can reserve up to eight tickets for $75* per ticket. Your ticket gives you access to our new Budweiser Patio with unlimited food and beverage.
I'm not going to do this, as I already have a ticket for that game. A bleacher ticket for that game on the Cubs website is currently selling for $46 (all fees included). The $75-plus-asterisk ticket will cost you $80 with fees -- so if you had $34 worth of food and drink on the patio, you'd get your money's worth. It does show that the Cubs have been having trouble selling some of the patio tickets at the prices they set before the season.
Neither lineup was in at the time I wrote this post. Check the BCB Twitter feed for today's lineups.
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Brooks Raley has never faced the Rockies or anyone on their roster. He's pitched better since his disastrous debut. I'd love to see that progress continue.
For the second day in a row, the Cubs will face a pitcher, Alex White, who has never faced them or anyone on the current roster. That worked out OK on Friday, but two straight games? Pressing our luck.
Today's game is on CSN Chicago.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Rockies site Purple Row.
Today's first pitch thread will post at 12:05 p.m. CDT and the overflows at 1:05, 2:05 and 2:50 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section. Also please note: due to some under-the-hood changes, the sidebar box with the game thread links is no longer available. It seems you've found them with no problems, but if you haven't been able to find the overflow threads, click the "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" link under "Sections" on the left sidebar. They're all in there.
Discuss amongst yourselves.