I hate to be on the Marlins side, but Montreal count the free tickets they give in the total attendance while the Marlins do not (http://www.cyberpresse.ca/reseau/sports/0209/spo_102090141618.html). So that give the Marlins another plus.

I was a baseball fan, before the strike, the fire sales and the countless rumours of relocation/dissolution. Now I'm fed up and only wish that 2002 was really the last year for the Expos in Montreal. I'm even surprised that 812 545 fans showed up this year. I would have been happy with something around 250 000.

Now if they come back next year, they will be a shame. The league will want to reduce the salary of the team, so you will have a AAA caliber team playing against Atlanta and company. They even talk about playing some local games in other cities. What a joke...

Now for Loria and his little poodle, Samson. I hate them, but I must aknowledge that they improve. What took them 2 years in Montreal to achieve (kill the team), took them only one year in Florida :-) They may have beatten Montreal in attendance, but they got the worst lost in % of attendance from last year. About 400 000 less in one year if my memory is correct. Way to go, Loria!

>Montreal brought an average of 10,031 attendees per game this year while Florida brough in 10,038. That represents 7 persons more per game which totals a difference of 567 persons. Now, yesterday, the Marlins confirmed approx. 8,000 attendees for their closing game of the season but the announced crowd was 28,599. Wanna know why? Simple, an unidentified person purchased 15,000 tickets by himself/herself yesterday in order to boost up the stats so they could move on top Montreal in the overall attendance. And as more ridiculous as is gets is that no one wants to tell who that person is or seems to know about him/her is as if noboby knows about who that person really is. Talk about that! Is there someone over there who really think baseball fans are stupid?