  We discuss a relation between the
  QCD thermodynamics obtained from a statistical analysis of particle
production in heavy ion collisions at SPS and RHIC energies and recent LGT
results at finite chemical potential. We show that basic thermodynamic
properties obtained from the phenomenological statistical operator of a hadron
resonance gas that describes particle yields in heavy ion collisions are
consistent with recent LGT results. We argue that for $T\leq T_c$ the equation
of state derived from
  Monte--Carlo simulations of two quark--flavor QCD at finite chemical
potential can be well described by a hadron resonance gas when using the same
set of approximations as used in LGT calculations. We examine the influence of
a finite quark mass on the position of the deconfinement transition in
temperature and chemical potential plane.
