WASHINGTON--Baseball fans may be crying foul over steroids, but few will abandon the game, leaving Major League Baseball -- even with the scandal in full-swing -- poised to hit another financial home run in 2008.

“There’s been a lot of saber-rattling by politicians and fans,” said David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. But they “will tolerate almost anything in exchange for the opportunity to watch a few ball games.”

Baseball is on a scorching attendance streak, breaking its own record in each of the past four seasons. Coupled with  staggering revenue growth in recent years, the league may avoid an economic hit despite the steroids pickle.

Commissioner Bud Selig isn’t worried about baseball’s financial prospects or its future fanfare.

“We broke an attendance record this year and we’ll break a new one next year,” said a confident Selig to a group of  reporters huddled around him following last week’s steroids hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Last year, attendance hit  79.5 million fans , up 4.5 percent from the previous record of 76 million set the year prior.

Overall, MLB attendance since 1990 has jumped 59 percent, up from 50 million, compared with last year’s high.

League revenue is nothing to balk at either.

America’s pastime batted in more than $6 billion last season, up 279 percent since 1992, when the league made $1.6 billion, according to the MLB commissioner’s office.

While the league makes money from newer products like MLB.TV, a Web-based subscription television service, ticket sales – and prices – around the country are at an all-time high.

The Boston Red Sox will charge 9 percent more than last year when the average seat at Fenway Park cost $47.71, making it the costliest ticket in the league, according to Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports research firm.

Randy Vataha, president of Boston-based Game Plan LLC, a sports investment bank,  thinks Selig’s approach to the scandal is helping.

“The reality is the league really went after [steroids],” he said. “I don’t see any drop off in the business because of the attempt to fix it.”

Yet, some critics take issue with how the owners and players scored their millions during the scandal and others say it’s too early to gauge fan reaction.

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., questioned  the product the league puts on the field at the recent hearing.

“Every fan who has bought a ticket in the last 20 years has been witness to a fraud,” she said, calling the league “a criminal conspiracy that defrauded millions of baseball fans of billions of dollars.”

To Stephen A. Greyser, a sports business professor at Harvard University, the league isn’t financially home free just yet.“We’re still in a wait-and-see period,” he said.

It will take a shocking revelation to stir an adverse reaction in fan support, Greyser added.

“If it’s truly a major name or if a lot of people admit to it, then the impression people have becomes an evidence supported reality,” he said. “It’s only under those conditions that fan behavior would be affected in a major way.”

Con or not, the economic success of the league during Selig’s tenure is undeniable and shows no signs of slowing..

“Ultimately, [owners] believe the fans would rather complain about the price of playoff tickets than take a social stand on the players,” Carter, of USC, said.

In the end, city and team loyalty trumps questionable competitive choices any time, he added.

“People get fed up with their cell phone and they change plans,” he said. “Fans get fed up with the Lakers and they don’t become a Broncos fan.”