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As Baseball America's Josh Leventhal writes, the economy has hit baseball's minor leagues:

For the first time in six years, minor league baseball did not set an attendance record.

The economic slowdown proved too great for even the debut of six new ballparks to overcome. Final overall attendance is expected to be announced later this week, but MILB spokesman Steve Densa confirmed today that a new record was not reached in 2009.

Replacing failing markets with new ones, and swapping aging ballparks with state-of-the-art facilities has been at the heart of minor league baseball's recent growth. Last year, the sport rode the coattails of three new ballparks to overcome the recession and set a new standard by drawing 43,263,740.

Optimism remained that a similar model could work this year, even as the minors began its first full season in the economic slowdown. Six new ballparks debuted in 2009 (a seventh expected opening, in Winston-Salem, was pushed back until next season due to financing complications).

Some of the new ballparks "worked" -- the Columbus Clippers were tops in the minors in their new building -- and some didn't, but I don't think it matters much either way. This isn't like the majors, where two or three new ballparks can impact attendance significantly. Including the rookie-level leagues, there are 187 domestic minor-league teams that sell tickets. Six new ballparks can make hardly a ripple.

I figured attendance would be down a little in the majors, but that TV ratings would hold steady (at worst) and so would minor-league attendance. About the first of those, I was right (though attendance has dropped a tad more than I expected). But about the other two, we (or at least I) just don't know yet. I haven't seen any local TV ratings, which are essentially the only ratings that really matter. And minor-league baseball not setting a new record doesn't mean that attendance dropped significantly.

My guess? Professional baseball in all its manifestations -- majors, minors, independent -- is perfectly healthy, and where attendance has flagged, it will pick up when the economy does. Everybody else has taken a hit this year; why shouldn't baseball?