Rob Manfred has a problem to sort out. The final attendance for this season reached 71,409,421. It marks the third straight year of attendance growth for the first time in 18 years (2005-2007). While surpassing the 70 million milestone consecutively is great, the divide between baseball’s top draws and its smaller-market teams has never felt wider. It’s very rare for a scrimmage game to overshadow a playoff, but that’s exactly what happened in the Philadelphia Phillies’ intra-squad game on Wednesday night.

Making the most of off-days between their final regular-season game and the NLDS, the Phillies conducted an intra-squad game at Citizens Bank Park. And Guess what?

They sold more than a whopping 31,000 tickets at $10 apiece. It’s more than 26,186 tickets the Cleveland Guardians sold fo

See Full Page