Does A Bigger Crowd Help A Team?

Because of the Marlins' attendance eccentriciy, this issue comes up occasionly. Colin Wyers of the Hardball Times tries to give some finality to the question by examinng "nearly every game from 1974 on", and finds that the "results certainly seem to suggest that the home crowd is a factor in giving a team home field advantage" but discovers that "super-high-attendance teams don't seem to win any more games than our high-attendance team did". And when he excludes games played after August, there's "still is an advantage to playing to a packed house, but not enough to make a difference in a full season's slate of games. There is still a sizable disadvantage to playing to an empty house". (HardballTimes)