10 Reasons Why Baseball Is Back

In terms of per-game attendance, baseball has yet to completely recover from the 1994 strike, when the average crowd was a record 31,612. But this season the average is running within 94% of that record (29,693).

3 Damn Yankees are box-office magic.

Fortified by the addition of baseball's best all-around player, Alex Rodriguez, the sport's preeminent franchise is spreading excitement and money around the game like never before. The Yankees, who had the game's best record at week's end (47-26), have already sold a franchise-record 3.5 million tickets. With a roster that includes 16 players who have been selected to All-Star Games-including six who have finished first, second or third in league MVP voting—the New York club is also on track to become the biggest road draw in baseball history (3.4 million), eclipsing the 2000 Reds, who attracted three million fans in Ken Griffey Jr.'s first tour of the National League. At these rates the Yankees will displace the 1993 Rockies, who in their first season played before 7.17 million fans (including 4.48 million at home), as the most watched team in baseball history.

"I'd been around for nine years [with Seattle and Texas] and had never seen this type of intensity from the fans," Rodriguez says. "It's like being part of a traveling circus. It never stops."

On the road the Yankees are worth about 13,000 extra fans per game. That translates into an average bonus of $1.3 million for clubs that host New York for a three-game series. This year the Yankees also will kick a record $81.5 million into baseball's revenue-sharing pot, $17.2 million more than in 2003. And through Sunday cable ratings for Yankees games carried on the team-owned YES network were up 21% from last season.

4 The Devil Rays suddenly are the game's hottest team.

At the time it sounded foolish, even slightly delusional. "We're not going to finish last in our division," Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella guaranteed in February. For any other team that would be a modest goal, but since their in-augural season in 1998 the Devil Rays have had two homes: Tropicana Field and the cellar of the AL East. Even as recently as May 19, when his club was 10-28, Piniella's declaration was good for a laugh.

But over the last six weeks Tampa Bay, in a feel-good story that should give every struggling small market team hope, has put together baseball's most stunning turnaround. Boosted by a 12-game winning streak—the longest in the big leagues this season—the Devil Rays had the majors' best record from May 20 through Sunday (26-8). During that run they swept series from the Indians, Rockies, Padres and Diamondbacks. When Tampa Bay improved to 36-35 with a 6-4 victory over Florida last Saturday, it became the first team in history to have a winning record after being as many as 18 games below .500 in the same season. Led by a strong bullpen (a 3.02 ERA since May 20) and a resilient offense (15 come-from-behind wins during that stretch), the Devil Rays have blown past the Orioles and the Blue Jays into third place in the division.

In its ignominious seven-year history Tampa Bay has never won more than 69 games; it was 63-99 last year, Piniella's first as the team's manager. The D-Rays have a payroll that is perennially ranked among the lowest ($29-5 million on Opening Day, the AL's cheapest) and had the league's worst attendance in the last three years. Last weekend, though, Tampa Bay had its best draw for a three-day set against one team—average crowds of 25,653—to bump Tropicana's average attendance 43.7% ahead of last year's at this time.

The Devil Rays' best player has been leadoff hitter Carl Crawford, a speedy, free-swinging, 22-year-old leftfielder. At week's end he led the team in hitting (.311) and runs (54) and had an AL-best 33 stolen bases. During his senior year at Houston's Davis High, in 1998-99, Crawford signed a letter of intent with Nebraska to play quarterback, but then he became the second-round draft pick of the Devil Rays, and he accepted a $1.3 million signing bonus.