It may not be the end of the world, but it’s the end of baseball in Baltimore … for now.
The riots in Baltimore have been so bad the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles series at Camden Yards has been brought to a halt. The two teams haven’t played over the past two days due to safety concerns, and now Major League Baseball and team officials are taking extreme measures for Wednesday’s game, doing something entirely unprecedented — playing a game in front of no fans.
MLB announced Tuesday afternoon the White Sox-Orioles game scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday EST will be entirely closed to the public, and it will be creepy as hell.
Just imagine the crack of the bat as Jose Abreu jacks a homer to left center, only to hear it clank against the empty bleachers followed by a few claps from teammates.
Here’s the press release the Orioles put on Twitter:
Although the epicenter of the riots are miles away from the ballpark, I’m sure there is still a large concern for fan safety. Just take look at this video posted Monday on Facebook, which shows an insane amount of violence just outside the gates of Camden Yards. 14 million views in one day.
Here’s a great tidbit from USAToday
According to John Thorn, official historian for Major League Baseball, this will be the first game with zero attendance. The previous low was 6, for a Sept. 28, 1882 game between the host Worcester Ruby Legs and Troy Trojans. In 2002, the minor league Charleston Riverdogs barred fans for five innings in an attempt to set a record for lowest attendance.
Good stuff. So the last time something like this happened it was done on purpose, and the franchise still failed.
To make matters even more bizarre, the weekend series the O’s were supposed to host against the Rays will now be moved to Tropicana Field in St. Pete.
[UPDATE]
Below are videos from the empty game at Camden Yards Wednesday. The Orioles won 8-2 and, as predicted, was incredibly creepy — especially the closing shot in this video as the organ music plays amongst the empty stands.
Here’s announcer Gary Thorne having a little fun, doing his ‘Masters voice,’ considering the entire ballpark could likely hear any type of normal vocal projection.
And here’s the video story from the AP — fans watching from across the street, fake autographs being signed … it’s great.
Supposedly the attendance Wednesday (in the stands) was two, the lowest in MLB history. Considering it was supposed to be zero, I’m assuming they were execs?
Josh Helmuth is the editor of CraveOnline Sports.
Photo Credit: Getty
