Irene....Makes Her Presence Felt

Hurricane Irene.....is making her presence  felt....

Even if it means empty seats in South Beach.

Yesterdays' game between the Florida Marlins and the Cincinnati Reds drew....

347 fans!

From the blog,  "Big League Stew":

347 fans! Hurricane Irene wipes out Marlins attendance

By 'Duk

What would happen if they staged a Major League Baseball game and no one came?
The Florida Marlins and Cincinnati Reds almost found out on Wednesday afternoon.

According to @790Justin, there was an unofficial headcount of 347 fans in the stands for the first pitch of Wednesday's doubleheader at Sun Life Stadium. Justin Cohen counted five sections with three or fewer people in it and three completely empty sections. The Marlins haven't announced the official attendance, but it likely won't challenge the record of the smallest crowd in modern history (believed to be 653 during a Oakland Athletics game in 1979).

That's because the Marlins will count all of the tickets that were sold, not just the number of fans that moved through the turnstiles. Back in 2007, someone counted 375 fans in the stands for the first pitch of an afternoon Marlins game in mid-September and the "official" attendance announced by the team was still 10,121.

UPDATE: The Marlins must see dead people. They announced the doubleheader's official attendance as 22,505 fans.