2014 Attendance

[SB Shock]

With the hiring of Butler, it did stopped the free-fall in attendance that was occurring under Gene. Overall attendance increased by 238 per game. Still has along ways to go to get back to the 2002 levels of 4,876 seats.

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[Rosewood]

I think it is more that we hit rock bottom

[engrshock]

I hope it is rock bottom. However, they need to start winning games. Another year like this one will not improve attendance and attendance could reach new lows.

[Cdizzle]

I went to a few baseball games this year. I went to the first baseball game because I'm a big Shocker fan, including Shocker baseball. I went to the remaining games to watch Gillaspie.

I do not know how many baseball games I will attend next year.

[Veritas]

It's a turn in the right direction at least. There was some positive anticipation with this year's team but the early season suspension, injuries, late April / May struggles and bad weather didn't help. Losing the first of two to both KU and KSU at their place didn't help either.
Not much went right with this team this year, so it's positive to see a slight increase in attendance.

[1972Shocker]

I didn't think the weather was that great this Spring and no doubt didn't help with attendance, although I guess they count season tickets as in attendance regardless of whether those seats are actually filled.

One place I wish Gene could have made more headway was in his Crusade to push the season back. Of course, the summer leagues wouldn't like that too much I suppose. Seems like Gene was pretty much fighting that battle a the Lone Ranger.

Would it make sense to play a split season. Play an 8-week, 32 game fall season (Non-con perhaps) from mid-August to Mid-October and then play an 8-week 32 game Spring season (league games with a mid-week non-con game) starting around April 1st.

Of course, football playing schools may not like that too much.

[tru2thaduce]

I missed the second game of the Long beach double header.Other than that I was at them all.Wasnt much to watch outside of Casey and the weekend starters this season.Sad thing is,I know a bunch of people that gave up on Gene a few years ago and didn't come back this year.Maybe a Valley tournament miracle will help.

[ShockerFever]

I missed the second game of the Long beach double header.Other than that I was at them all.Wasnt much to watch outside of Casey and the weekend starters this season.Sad thing is,I know a bunch of people that gave up on Gene a few years ago and didn't come back this year.Maybe a Valley tournament miracle will help.

A Valley Tournament miracle didn't help last year and it won't help much this year.

Pretty sad state of affairs where we're now banking on Valley Tournament miracles to give us a renewed hope at things.

[1972Shocker]

I would happily take another Valley Tournament miracle. Will that in and of itself change much. Probably not, but I'd still love to see it.

[SHOCKvalue]

The butts-in-seats attendance figures this year would have to be TERRIBLE.

Hope HCTB can turn it around, and I do have some faith that he will, but his previous performance as a D1 HC is not good. While Gene had us on a downward trend line, it is as if HCTB put that into warp drive. Typically good coaches don't do that. I was cautiously optimistic after his hire, and now I've probably slid down the scale to somewhat pessimistic after this first season.

[1972Shocker]

I was cautiously optimistic after his hire, and now I've probably slid down the scale to somewhat pessimistic after this first season.

I think it is entirely reasonable to have slipped down the scale. I was probably overly-optimistic about what he could do with essentially the same team as last year although I will say I think we have missed Minnis and Peterson out of the bullpen much more than I thought we would. Add to that the unanticipated impact of the NCAA suspensions and the rash of injuries and it has just been a tough year.

It's kind of difficult to evaluate what kind of coach Butler is or will prove to be. As @SBShock has pointed out we have a handful of players that have raised their games significantly and a handful of players that fell off significantly. Who gets the credit and the blame for that is hard to say.

While not as optimistic as I was I'm trying not to irrationally jump from being overly-optimistic to overly-pessimistic. I guess I have moved to the "time will tell" spot on the scale as I really don't know how this will play out and say that I am still somewhat optimistic.

I do think it was pretty clear, however, that the Shocks did not have good depth this year either on the pitching staff or among the position players (which exacerbated the suspension and injury issues). That certainly wasn't Coach Butler's doing. However, in Gene's defense it has to be tough to recruit as a lame-duck. You know other teams were using that to their advantage in the recruiting battles.

So perhaps the blame goes to a poorly handled transition. Who gets the blame for that. I don't really know but my guess is both ADES and Gene deserve some of the blame for that.

Perhaps the real blame goes back to whoever took Gene back after he accepted the Oklahoma job, although how many times have you ever seen a successful Coach not taken back by a program when they have a change of heart. I'm sure it's probably happened but I can't recall such an instance.

In any case, that is all water under the bridge and we are where we are. Pointing fingers of blame isn't really going to resolve anything. I'm for getting behind the Coaching staff and team the best we can and see if we can get this program back to where it should be.

[1972Shocker]

I am not real optimistic about next year. As I said I think we lacked quality depth this year. Unfortunately, most of the high quality players we do have on this year's roster will be moving on. So we are left with mostly the weak side of the depth chart plus the incoming recruits.

[xazshox]

Next Years recruiting class

If you knew anything at all about next year's recruiting class, you would change your tune. I kept track of it thru the no 20, but Butler signed 4 more a couple of weeks ago. He has quite a few power pitchers in the group & also a number of player with real size, too. I also like their credentials. It is indeed going to be a rebuilding year, but Butler & his staff will have some better talent to work with. I always enjoy the development process.

[1972Shocker]

I followed the recruiting process quite closely but the fact of the matter is none of this players have any D-1 experience and you just never know how a young man will respond to a step up in level. And as we all know it's a big step up from high school to D-1. Even the JUCO guys are taking a big step up in competition. Seems like a very good class. But everyone is always excited about their recruits, but realistically it is difficult to say how they will pan out.

A good example is A.J. Ladwig who was very highly thought of out of high school. It took him until his Junior year to figure things out. Thankfully for A.J. it will pay off nicely for him that the light bulb finally came on but he was so-so at best his first two years.

Hope your right. Of course, if the class is too damn good they will get hammered by the draft. So you really don't know what you have at this point and we won't know until we get well into next season IMHO.

[tru2thaduce]

I have very low expectations for next season in both results and attendance.I do know this.We will be playing a tough schedule and our young guys will be tested.My main concern is the starting staff next year.