Minor League Baseball attendance has been on the rise for five consecutive seasons despite the rising costs in gas among other economic hardships. One of the best examples of fan turnout is at Lake Olmstead Stadium.

The Augusta GreenJackets surpassed their record for attendance in a season on Friday after 4,400 tickets were sold in advance of their game against the Lexington Legends. The previous record, set last year at 177,780 fans in 70 home games, was broken with six regular-season home games remaining.

"I think this goes to show how popular baseball is in the CSRA and how much of a turnaround the franchise has had since Ripken Baseball took over," GreenJackets general manager Nick Brown said in a statement released by the team. "Anytime you can see your attendance rising year after year, you know things are moving in the right direction, and your fans and customers agree."

Lake Olmstead Stadium has averaged 2,834 spectators per game so far this year, which puts the GreenJackets in 10th place among the South Atlantic League's 16 teams. The high attendance numbers came despite weather problems that hurt the turnouts of both the season-opening weekend and Fourth of July festivities.

"There are two things we can't control, and they are the level of play and the weather," Brown said. "The Giants have been great about sending us some of the top young talent in the league. When it comes to weather, we have had a few issues this year ... but fans still came out and supported us."

Augusta has scheduled home games today and Monday before leaving town for a seven-game road trip.

The team will return to Lake Olmstead Stadium on Aug. 27 for the final three regular-season home games of the year.

ALL-STARS: Two former Augusta-area players have been named New York-Penn League All-Stars. Phil Disher , a South Aiken High graduate who played at South Carolina, and Chris Demons , a product of Glenn Hills High who played at Augusta State, will square off against each other Tuesday in Troy, N.Y.

Disher, who will play for the National League team, is hitting .304 with 11 homers and 41 RBI in 52 games for the Tri-City ValleyCats.

Demons, an outfielder for the Auburn Doubledays, will suit up for the American League. He has a .243 batting average and is 18-for-20 in stolen bases.

RARE PLAY: A vast majority of Thursday's crowd at Lake Olmstead Stadium probably still doesn't know the exact ruling of home-plate umpire Brian Dromair on what appeared to be a stolen base by Shane Jordan in the first inning of the GreenJackets' game against West Virginia.

Jordan swiped third base successfully during Juan Ciriaco 's at-bat, but Dromair ruled that Ciriaco interfered with catcher Eric Fryer when his bat hit Fryer in the mask on the backswing.

The normal ruling on a batter interference call requires the batter to be called out and the runner to return to his original base. However, Dromair ruled that the interference happened on the backswing, which meant Jordan must return to second base, but no out was called.

"I've done probably over 300 games, and I've never had to make that (backswing) call, and I've never heard of anybody making that call," Dromair said. "It was just one of those weird things that comes up. Most people probably had no idea what happened."

RARE INVITE: Former Silver Bluff standout Demetrius Washington has missed a good portion of the rookie-ball season with a quad injury, but the speedy outfielder will still get a chance to show off his talent.

The Angels, who drafted Washington in June, have extended a rare invitation to the American-born prospect. He'll play for the Angels in the Dominican Republic League this fall.