Reacting to Baltimore Rioting, M.L.B. and Teams Put Safety First

Ken Singleton is a little bit off on Baltimore history. For a long time before the inner harbor project and into the 70s, Baltimore had a vibrant downtown with department stores and first run movie theatres. At the time the inner harbor was largely deserted warehouses and the McCormick spice company. After the inner harbor opened, it boomed but the rest of the downtown became deserted and remains so to this day. It's sad that the inner harbor for so many people has come to represent Baltimore while ignoring what the rest of the downtown area has become.

The MLB and the Orioles are using "safety" as a poor excuse to stay uninvolved in community affairs. As in many other cities, Camden Yards was built with taxpayer money and then the greedy franchise shut out average citizens and their children with exorbitant pricing for tickets and refreshments. Now, the team is playing in an empty stadium when it could, indeed, invite the neighborhood in for a free game.

I just saw a televised report of the Baltimore Symphony holding a free concert in front of its own venue and there was no talk of public safety. Just public involvement. It is disgusting that the money-grubbing Orioles owners refused to do the same in a stadium built with public money. This is why so many Americans hate the rich.

MLB has always intersected with outside events in American history. I know the significance of April 15th 1947, just as I know that Hank Aaron hit HR # 715 under the threat of personal violence against him. In Ken Burn's baseball documentary, Inning 5 "The Capitol Of Baseball" it is documented that the Brooklyn Dodgers could not get approval for new downtown stadium, and move to LA with the promise more riches. I remember in Inning 6, the demolition of Ebbets Field, which tore the hearts of all Brooklynites. I remember Willie Horton in the streets of Detroit in the summer of 1968, pleading for calm. Ironically, the Tigers win the 1968 World Series in 7 games.
Now MLB has the magnificent new stadiums in virtually all major cities of America, where ticket prices are prohibitive to most working fans. Atlanta is building a new stadium in Cobb County, Georgia, and Turner Field site of the 1996 Summer Olympics is now considered outdated. Then the fact as shown in the sports media the MLB is losing viewership to the other American sports leagues NFL & NBA...
So because of scheduling in this must play every day, inter-league dominated 2010's brand of baseball, the citizens of Baltimore are denied the chance to "root, root, root for the home team" in person. While I am aware of the facts of the tragic events of the past two weeks leading up to this, today will mark a new change in American sports landscape. To paraphrase "Field Of Dreams" "If you build it, they will not come."

Really lame response by baseball! How about canceling the game and having the players, staff, and everyone else involved, pitch in and HELP out at the scene of this horrible, crisis situation that's gone on since the 1960's? What kind of message does this send? It's an awful, tone-deaf, slap in the face to people who are desperate for relief.

MLB doesn't get it. Playing a game without fans is a simplistic response to a complex issue. Baseball at Camden Yards matters to the people of Baltimore, the hometown fans, and the visitors; it is a symbol of celebration, major-league status, and economic progress. No fans at baseball? No understanding of why baseball is played!

This is a mistake, which, in part, reflects baseball's own color problem among its fans. In many cities like Minneapolis, the great majority of people in the stands are white. I myself (not white) have only been to a couple games in Baltimore, but I suspect the issue is similar. So does this become a matter of wanting to protect a mostly white fan base from all the black folks downtown, where the ballpark sits? To me, that seems like a problem. The answer is not in moving the stadium to the suburbs, it is in building relationships. If the Orioles had authentic relationships with the surrounding community, surely there would be an easy way to offer free entrance (and a free hot dog and drink) to nearby school children of a certain age and to local youth baseball team members. Alas, such relationships must not exist. This seems like a major lost opportunity in the short term as well as a sign of baseball's longer term problem relative to diversifying its fans.

I agree with the decision by MLB, provided that there is not a safety issue for the players.

A ballpark may seat 50,000, but the TV audience in IL and especially MD is much larger. Folks watch the game on TV at night, and it is both enjoyment and part of bringing normalicy to their lives. And a dose of comfort and normalicy is just what the doctor orders right now.

Do you think they will still pump in digital sound effects and hand clapping during the game? How about moving the game elsewhere?

Another sign that our country continues to move in the wrong direction.

I would be curious to know an answer to a question I heard on the radio when it was announced that today's game would be played with no fans ... what about the local people who staff the stadium during games? Do they lose a day's pay? It would do a lot of good to the city and to major league baseball if MLB or the Orioles simply paid a fair day's wage to the men and women of Baltimore who are employed for home games. It's not their fault they can't sell concessions, work the gates, provide security, etc. If baseball fans can exchange tickets as compensation for today's decision, I would like to see the hometown employees also be compensated.

Are you kidding me? Um, hello, this is a *sport* whose entire purpose is to be a spectacle that people watch, live. This is the dumbest thing Baltimore and the MLB could do. Really? Locking out the fans because players are scared? Baltimore, you're a coward. And the MLB players are even bigger cowards.

To whom will the national anthem be sung?
For whom or what will the game be played?
How will the players feel?
Will on-field disputes be the same?
Will the official MLB record of the game list attendance as 0?
Is "the flag still there" if there is no one at the game to see it?

Let the rioters into Camden Yards to loot and destroy. Then lock the gates and let them destroy each other.

Not sure I get it, but I don't like it. Is Manfred Bill Veck, as in wreck. Game should be played with fans in the stands. The game should not count in the standings. Fans affect the game. We cheer the good plays and boo the bad ones. We encourage the players and assist rallies. We wear the garb, talk the talk and eat the food. That's baseball. If no butts in the seats, then no broadcasters in the booth. Play ball in silence with no witnesses.

Playing in an empty stadium should not pose a problem for the WhiteSox- they've been playing in one for years.

Let's not forget the ushers, vendors, the folks that work in the concession stands and the hundreds of other employees who work in the stadium on game days will be furloughed today and most probably won't get paid.

I suggest that the Baltimore team be made to forfeit the games which are affected by the rioting. It is Baltimore's fault for angering the rioters by not using seat belts for its prisoners, and giving them a "rough ride" in the police transport van. It is also Baltimore's fault for not giving their prisoners emergency medical attention in a timely manner.

There is a larger meaning in this event, an allegory rife with metaphors standing for the state our nation has fallen to. "America's pastime," now played by young men with multi-million dollar salaries many of whom are required to submit urine samples to prove they are not seeking an unsportsmanlike advantage. The stadiums, located in our major cities, named after one or another corporation, subsidized by money taken from taxpayers and costing so much to attend that their stands and luxury boxes now cater largely to the rich and upper middle class whites who can afford it. Here in Queens, where I live, the once innocent Shea Stadium is now Citifield, (after the bank, not the city), the old blue rotunda now replaced by a grotesque out of a Batman movie and covered over with huge, blindingly lit advertising, probably in an attempt to generate additional income for owners nearly bankrupted by their investment with Bernie Madoff. This year, not content with scarring the evening vista with advertising pasted to the building, another glaring, huge ad was placed strategically for the enjoyment of passing drivers as well as fans parking their cars. (That is, fans who can afford to park in the lot rather than under the overpass leading back out to the suburbs. Yet, here, only the darkly cynical have thoughts of bread and circuses. Baseball, here, an activity so romanticized and mythologized that grown men tear up when they look back on their memories. Mark this date.

In addition to the Tropicana Field reference by Teixeira, I can add my own experience of seeing the Montreal Expos in the years leading up to their departure. A couple of games the attendance couldn't have been more than 1,500 or 2,000 fans in a stadium that could hold well over 50,000. Still 1,500 fans making noise is something, especially with a PA system blasting out as if the place were full. In Baltimore it will be surreal, no doubt, and a sharp contrast to the events of the past few days. I hope they forego the PA system altogether and we can experience the game (on TV) in a way that strips away the cacophony of the business and delivers the beauty of the game.

The ballpark will be empty and thus somewhat mirrors the empty streets of our City tonight as the the curfew unfolds. I have often gazed at a crowd at Camden Yards amazed at how the Orioles could galvanize and unite the two faces of our City. It seems that professional sports teams generate a civic pride that transcends the friction and differences that all cities contain. I understand the practicality of 'safety first' and endorse it. Yet, I lament even this temporary deprivation of one of Baltimore's and for that matter the country's sources of unity. MLB, let's not make a habit of it.

The nonchalance of most people regarding the barring of fans to an MLB game is disturbing. Since 1872 we have managed to play baseball professionally without this ever happening. Perhaps it will all blow over and they will make light of it by making the movie "Escape from Baltimore". Or perhaps several decades from now we may look back at this as one of the initial signs of the decline and downfall of the United States.

The White Sox probably won't notice much of a difference given how poorly they draw fans at home. And, yes, in all seriousness this is the right thing to do. See this linked statement from the COO of the Orioles; he could get elected to high office with this viewpoint. Good for him.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb

[[“I wish they’d shut the gates,” the former slugger Dick Allen once said, “and let us play ball with no press and no fans.”]]

Who is Dick Allen? I've never heard of him. I guess he got his wish.

A golden opportunity to listen to the chatter from the players unobscured by fan noise, if the broadcasters' equipment is up to the task. Did Hollywood get it right in "A League of Their Own", "42", ...?

Wise decisions, but most unfortunate. A criminal with a long rap sheet resists arrest and is brutally treated by cops leading to a bunch of out-of-countrol angry thugs rendering an already suffering city almost paralyzed. Who is NOT to blame there? MLB.

Without a doubt, saftey first. The Mayor, I suppose forgot about that. Too bad, she obviously wasn't thinking about the team, the fans or the revenue. Probably kicking herself today. Hopefully The Preskness will scramble to race some where else. Heck, if I had a million dollar horse, sure wouldn't want it to get smoke inhalation. Besides, where would the fans stay?

Of course it's still a business. Thousands of fans will be watching the game via live television broadcast and, as the article states, the media will be present to provide the play-by-play.

Sorry, this is business as usual....