The wins were down, but the attendance was up in 2013

The Orioles' attendance was up 12.1 percent in 2013 as the club drew a total of 2,357,101 fans over 81 dates a season after drawing 2,102,240 for 79 dates. This was the Orioles' largest attendance figure since the club drew 2,624,740 in 2005. The O's average attendance increased from 26,611 per game in 2012 to 29,100 in 2013. The Orioles posted seven sellouts, actually down one from last year. Maybe the most impressive was the 44,230 on the final day of the season for a game with no playoff implications going directly against a Ravens game on television. The Orioles ranked eighth out of 15 AL teams in both total and average attendance. Four AL clubs topped three million with New York at 3.279, Texas 3.178, Detroit 3.083 and Los Angeles 3.016 million. A few other attendance notes around the majors: * Eight teams surpassed the three-million mark, while 15 eclipsed the 2.5-million mark (up from 13 in 2012). * The San Francisco Giants ended the season with 246 consecutive sellouts, dating back to Oct. 1, 2010, for the longest active streak in the majors. * The Los Angeles Dodgers led the majors with 3,743,527, the first time they led the league since 2009. Major League Baseball finished the 2013 regular season with an attendance of 74,026,895, the sixth-highest total of all-time. But the average MLB attendance of 30,514 per game was down 1.1 percent from 2012. The Nationals drew 2,652,422, their most since 2005 and the combined O's/Nats attendance was 5,009,523. With both clubs drawing more fans than 2005 coming off playoff appearances, the message was clear to team management on both ends of I-95. If you win, they will come. The region will support two winning teams. At a time when just about every game is on television and prices are not going down, MLB teams are drawing about as well as they ever did. Many minor league clubs thrive as well and the sport is healthy from that standpoint. So what about O's attendance in 2013? Was that a reasonable spike up after a playoff appearance? Will the O's ever see the day they draw three million again?