ESPN MLB

Major League Baseball is projected to suffer a 6.5% attendance drop, its biggest single-season loss since Harry Truman was president, excluding years involving a work stoppage.

Twenty teams have had an attendance decline entering the season's final week -- including five teams by more than 20% - according to calculations by Baseball-reference.com. The Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers are the only teams boasting 10% or greater increases.

Despite the biggest downturn since 1952, Commissioner Bud Selig said he was elated that MLB was projected to attract about 75.2 million fans - the fourth most in baseball history.

"Given that we are in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression," Selig said, "it is stunning. This year is a great testament to the huge popularity of our sport."

Well, it's not stunning. Most analysts before the season predicted an attendance drop somewhere between 5 and 10 percent, so I would say this year is perfectly anti-stunning. Movie theaters have seen a solid increase in ticket sales, but movie tickets are cheaper than baseball tickets and movies are the purest form of escapism that's yet been invented.

As I've written before, the true test of baseball interest this season is local TV ratings; if the fans who aren't showing up at the ballpark are instead watching at home, MLB's got nothing to worry about. If the fans have become ex-fans, a few painful adjustments will have to be made.