Baseball Attendance Drops In First Week

NEW YORK (AP) Baseball attendance dropped during the first week of the season, with many teams opening in bad weather.

The 90 games drew an average of 28,272, the commissioner's office said Monday. That was down 2.7 percent from the first 90 home games of those same teams last year, which averaged 29,063.

Because several high-drawing teams opened on the road, the drop was even steeper when comparing the attendance of the teams at home last week to the teams at home in the opening week of the 2002 season. Last week's average was 9.8 percent below last year's average of 31,339.

Several teams opened to cold and wet weather, including Baltimore, the Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Kansas City, the New York Mets, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Home openers for the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland and the New York Yankees were postponed Monday by snow. Pittsburgh's opener was called off because of rain.

Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said it was hard to compare the opening averages, because of the difference in teams opening at home. Last year, for instance, the Yankees were among those who played at home the first week.