The Charleston RiverDogs’ stunt in 2002 continued a family tradition of baseball innovation, but empty ballparks will not be a novelty much longer
On a hot July evening in Charleston, South Carolina, almost 2,000 baseball fans made their way to Joseph P Riley Jr Park, a pleasant if somewhat clumsily-named ball park on a bend in the Ashley river. Their local minor league team, the RiverDogs, were playing against the Columbus RedStixx. But on a beautiful night for baseball in 2002, the stadium gates were padlocked.
Not that the fans had expected any different. This was ‘Nobody Night’, an effort to set an unbeatable world record for baseball’s – and, come to think of it, any sport’s –lowest attendance. Fans happily reconvened at a nearby tailgate party, stocked with discounted beer and snacks. Some brought deckchairs and peered through gaps in the gates. “We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have truly terrible seats,” one local told the Associated Press.
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