Keeping Track of Attendance : Baseball: Major leagues announce tickets sold, while newspapers prefer turnstile numbers.

The stadium looks half-empty. The box score in the next morning’s paper says 40,000 people were there.

Attendance figures for baseball games aren’t what they appear to be.

“Tickets sold is a more meaningful number. I just feel that that’s the right way to do it,” acting Commissioner Bud Selig says.

When teams announce attendance, they give the total of tickets sold, whether fans use them or not. Until 1993, the National League issued both figures.

“I think it’s typical of all professional sports. They want to manage the news,” says Dave Smith, deputy managing editor and executive sports editor of the Dallas Morning News. “It’s the same problem we have in dealing with professional sports in other areas. One minute they complain about how they’re being covered, the next minute they’re constantly manipulating the media, the same way they try to manipulate the fans.”

The Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal no longer list attendance in box scores. The papers change it to tickets sold. The Times will also use tickets sold after the All-Star game, assuming baseball doesn’t change its attendance policy.

“I think readers are entitled to the most accurate figures available. The person who goes to the ballpark and sees 10,000 people in the stands and then reads the box score and it says 23,000 knows something is not right,” says Neil Amdur, sports editor of the New York Times. “That’s a question of honesty vs. integrity. It’s the error of omission that’s at issue here, and baseball needs as much integrity as possible.”

Baseball officials say some sports editors are making much ado about nothing.

“Nobody here is claiming the same number of people are in the park as the tickets sold,” American League spokeswoman Phyllis Merhige says. “Once the seat is sold, it can’t be sold again. We’ve never taken a turnstile count.”

By baseball’s own figures, attendance is down about 20% since the end of the strike in April.

“Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal,” says John Cherwa, deputy sports editor of the Los Angeles Times. “But because of the strike, the actual number of people in the stands is an important barometer for how baseball is faring after the strike of 1994.”

The NFL issues figures for both tickets sold and no-shows for each game.

Amdur hasn’t raised the issue with baseball officials.

“Given the attention that’s being accorded to baseball attendance or the lack of it, we certainly should take it more seriously,” he says. “The absence of fans in the ballparks is a measure of displeasure, distrust and disinterest on the part of fans.”