OT: Major League History will be Made Tomorrow
 

Tomorrow, major league, and perhaps professional sports history will be made. The Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox will play in a game that is 100% closed to the public. No concessions, no 7th inning stretch, no PA announcer (as of yet) or walk-up music. Only the press box, scoreboard operators, radio/tv and the singer for the national anthem will be in attendance. The game was moved to 2:05 PM to abide by city curfew mandates due to civil unrest. The television footage will definitely be interesting and eerie.

This quixotic thing about this is that it could be a huge broadcast in the face of such tragedy.

Kids
 

They ought to make it a kids only event or something like that to make it fun, maybe schools, children hospital etc.

Jeff

id imagine this will be a quick game!

The Falcons could pipe in some crowd noise for them. :D

I was thinking this game would set the record for lowest attendance, but MLB attendance is based on tickets sold, not how many people show up. If I had a ticket for the game, I'd keep it for the historic value.

I also believe you will see people in the seats, family of the players, scouts and some front office types.

It may be a first, but it won't be a far cry from some Senators games in RFK that I attended in my youth.

I'll be watching on mlb.tv

wow, i'm hoping when the angels get to baltimore in two weeks the rioting will be completed, i'll be in va for training and would like to say i saw my home team play in another state before i saw them at home

(actually i wouldnt mind if the rioting stopped today)

That attendance record will beat this one for sure. http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2015/04/25...ntent=20150426

250?
 

Isn't zero the average attendance for a Marlins home game?

Sorry Jeff, sad, but it is the teenage kids destroying the city.

Joe

Make a wish
 

It would be the perfect opportunity for a make a wish for children in need, I iust see it as an opportunity to for the game of baseball to help the young kids, not the teenagers who are causing the problems.

I think you're right. However, it is a volatile situation that is very very close to the ballpark. Additionally, all Maryland schools have suspended field trips into Baltimore for the next couple of weeks.

The company I work for banned all business travel to Baltimore and Washington DC.

Unfortunately this has happened in european soccer, or "football" if you will.

If a club's supporters display obscene racism or hooliganism then the penalty is often playing home matches "behind closed doors"

For the USA, perhaps a first- but this has happened many a time over in Europe

This could be an opportunity for the players to play for the love of the game not for the fans, Would be interesting to see how much No fans verse fans has an impact on this game. Maybe a minor star or rookie has a breakout game
without the pressure of the fans and media. Would love to experience watching from TV a game with no fans.

Have you ever been at an empty stadium? They will be able to hear the play-by-play from the broadcast booths and anyone there talking. There might be more pressure as they will be able to hear everything being said instead of just crowd noise

This game would be a good lesson to super star players who think they're above everything. See how lonely it is to be playing for no one. Now imagine if everyone decided they'd had enough of your crap and really stopped coming. You get pretty small pretty quick.

I was at the game Saturday night with about 10 people just as it started to get bad. A friend and I walked into the middle of the riots (while the other 8 stayed back). It was a little scary walking into the middle of it, but we had.....ummm....protection with us. I have some interesting pictures to say the least. The media chose not to show how bad it really was for some people (i.e. whites) who were going to the game in pairs or with their wife/girlfriend. There was even a rumor at one time that we were going to have to stay in the park all night and maybe even sleep there if it got really bad outside. An interesting night to say the least!

They will be logging the attendance officially as N/A in the record books.

Serious question: if you're insinuating you brought a gun to a baseball game, why?

That's interesting to note. Teams go by sold tickets, so literally no one who bought a ticket could show up and it wouldn't be any different than if 100% showed up. Since tickets were sold for the game and it is an official game, there should be an attendance. They also use the N/A for the second games of standard(not day/night) doubleheaders, since all the attendance counts towards one game.

I would imagine this will be very difficult for the players to concentrate in such a strange setting. It will sound like batting practice/ pre-game warm ups.

Serious question: if you're insinuating you brought a gun to a baseball game, why?


I'm not a member of the NRA or a gun fanatic, but maybe it's my right to?? Maybe I'm a police officer?? Maybe I put it back in the car afterwards?? Camden Yards 100% allows police officers to take firearms into the game.

And a sincere thanks for doing that too.

If you bring up bringing a gun to a baseball game I think it's fair to ask why. Especially since the parks have installed metal detectors at the entrances. No criticism was offered.

No offense taken.

Also, why go out of your way to phrase it in the language of plausible deniability ("...um...protection") instead of just stating that you felt safe because you had your gun? What is the benefit of making a lawful act seem like a shady undertaking? Normally I would guess it's to impress women who are looking for a bad boy, but I don't think you'll find any of those here on the forum.

(But if I'm wrong, ladies, feel free to PM me for pictures of all my Ty Cobb tattoos.)

I did not know the forum rules about guns, etc. Nor did I want to get into some unnecessary gun debate. It was never meant to be questioned; just understood. So to clarify; I was at the beginning of the riots Saturday night near Camden Yards. It was a little surreal. But I felt (somewhat) safe with 2 of us having guns for protection. The end! haha

Again no offense but when I read that someone was bringing a gun with them to a baseball game with no context it was pretty unnerving. I understand you're a police officer but I didn't know that when I read your initial post.

I clearly remember that season for the A's. Growing up, the early 70's A's were my favorite team, and just stuck with them.

1979, freshman year in college. The first baseman mentioned in article was Dave Revering. He would routinely count and personally report attendance. If the official attendance was stated at 3000, he would say he only counted 600.

Also had an article taped to my dorm room wall saying: "Finley to sell A's for 6 million."

Sad day for Baltimore; sadder day for Baseball.

True story...I was at a Lincoln Saltdogs baseball game about 4 or 5 years ago...they have berm seating where you just sit in the grass and the guy in front of me had a gun down the back of his pants. I could have just grabbed it right out if I wanted to...or any kid could have done the same thing. After noticing this I took my family to the upper deck seats.

Just saw the highlights from todays game. There were not too many more fans at last night's Braves-Nationals game!

Why would it be unnerving for any law abiding citizen to have a gun anywhere? It's not as if people wave their guns around. I don't understand why people get so upset when someone exercises their rights. I guess people should just sit around and wait to be a victim instead and having he ability to defend themselves. It's this thinking that allows these thugs in Baltimore to believe they can get away with rioting and attacking people for no reason. I won't even touch he underlying "basis" for the riot. Sorry to go sideways on you, but please.

You really want to start this in a baseball forum?

I didn't start it, I'm just making a comment. I didn't see you jumping in earlier so you must disagree with me which is fine.

It's like watching golf.

http://streamable.com/sbm1

Why not, not against the law, just don't bring the gun into the stadium

Joe

+1

Boy do I feel stupid now! I thought he had brought condoms to the ball game.



Now, I can only imagine that the 7th inning stretch went something like this . . . .

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the . . . . crowd?"

"That Green Jacket is well within reach" :) LMAO...WTF is he talking about?...nice

.

I'm not suggesting it isn't your right or that you've done anything wrong. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question since I'm not accustomed to people carrying guns. I don't know why a question means I'm against you or something.

No judgment here, officer. I dont blame anyone who is carrying in the wake of a riot even if it is illegal. In the wake of the LA riots I had to go to a deposition downtown. Carrying a gun without a permit is illegal but the city had just come off curfew and there was a lot of fear. I took my .357 everywhere including the deposition. At a break we were all discussing the riots. The witness opened his briefcase and showed me a .45. I showed him the .357. The court reporter laughed and opened her purse and showed us a S & W .32 with a pink grip. The other attorney said he could not believe he was the only one in the room without a gun.

That said, the issue for me with loose carrying laws is twofold: if everyone is presumed armed it makes law enforcement much riskier and potentially increases the number of deadly confrontations, and if anyone can carry the likely carriers are the people who shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car.

And yes I am elitist. Call me nuts but I don't want morons walking down the street armed to the teeth.

As George Carlin once said, "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

I don't trust the average person to safely carry a gun, so by default, I don't trust half of the population to safely carry (I have a couple guns myself).

If every single one of the rioters in Baltimore were legally carrying, if the men who burned cars, looted stores and threw bricks all had legal firearms with permits, would I have felt safer in that crowd? Absolutely not.

Anyway, I saw some pretty funny videos of guys on the Orioles signing autographs for phantom fans and tossing balls into the stands. I heard you could hear the announcer's home run call echo through the entire park.

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
Yogi Berra


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And PLEASE - let's move any gun discussions to the water-cooler...see you there.

+1

So glad I rushed home from work to see my Sox get pummeled.