Bob Castellini might resort to some Jackie Moon-like tactics to get people down to GABP this summer.

Are the Reds becoming the Flint Tropics?  Is Dusty Baker going to wrestle a bear?

After another dismal crowd on Thursday night, the Reds are now averaging 20,135 fans over 13 home dates. That’s good enough for 23rd in the league but just an average of 700 fans away from 29th in the league.  Sadly, even Florida is averaging more fans than us (20,412).

Thanks to baseball-almanac.com, here are the attendance figures over the last few years at GABP:

2005 – 23,989

2006 – 26,351

2007 – 25,388

2008 – 25,415

In order for the Reds to match last year’s average attendance, they will need to draw 26,424 fans over their final 68 home dates.

The Reds have not drawn 30,000 per game since the strike-shortened season of 1994.  In fact, the Reds have drawn over 30,000 annually just 5 times in the franchise’s existence (76, 77, 78, 93, 94).

My message to Reds fans:  Where the hell were you last night?  It was a perfect night weather-wise, the Reds had a t-shirt giveaway with a cool (and affordable) singles night/pub crawl promotion going on, the team is right in the thick of the NL Central race and has four of the best young players in baseball (Bruce, Votto, Volquez, Cueto).  Is the economy really that much of a factor in only 14,000 fans coming to the park when $5 tickets can be had and a $1 menu that can feed an entire family on the cheap?

Now I realize that this weekend’s series could very well draw 30,000 plus to each game, but that is still no excuse for playing in front of just friends and family during the week.

Please don’t tell me it will have to come down to the video below before more people start coming to weeknight games.