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According to @790Justin, there was an unofficial headcount of 347 fans in the stands for the first pitch of Wednesday's doubleheader at Sun Life Stadium. Justin Cohen counted five sections with three or fewer people in it and three completely empty sections. The Marlins haven't announced the official attendance, but it likely won't challenge the record of the smallest crowd in modern history (believed to be 653 during a Oakland Athletics game in 1979).
That's because the Marlins will count all of the tickets that were sold, not just the number of fans that moved through the turnstiles. Back in 2007, someone counted 375 fans in the stands for the first pitch of an afternoon Marlins game in mid-September and the "official" attendance announced by the team was still 10,121.
UPDATE: The Marlins must see dead people. They announced the doubleheader's official attendance as 22,505 fans.
The empty orange seats at Marlins games, of course, has been a conversation topic for years and the upper deck at Sun Life has been closed since the All-Star break. Still, I don't think anyone can blame the thousands of Marlins fans for not attending this one. With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast, Wednesday's first game was moved from its original spot on Thursday so the teams would be guaranteed to complete it.
And, really, what would you rather do: Make sure your home is safe and flee the area? Or stick around on a hot day in South Florida in a lame duck football stadium to watch a baseball game between two teams that are going nowhere?
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