When the Baltimore Orioles take the field this afternoon for their home game against the Chicago White Sox, they'll do it without a cheering, heckling crowd, and without the smell of peanuts and Cracker Jack in the air, as there will be no fans in the stands.
The rioting in protest over the death of Freddie Gray while in the police department's custody has raged outside Camden Yards, the team's home stadium.
On Saturday, fans were kept inside the venue for their protection, but for Wednesday's game, they won't be there at all, and team Vice President of Baseball Operations Dan Duquette defended that call on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"There's a lot of considerations to take into mind here," Duquette said of the decision, which has put the team under fire in some corners from people who say shutting down the stands allows rioters to win more control in the violence-torn city.
"We wanted to be sensitive to what's going on in our city and we also wanted to take a look at the work schedule," he said. "There's a very demanding schedule in Major League Baseball. And in this case, the White Sox, this is the only time they're in town and there's not a good time for them to come back and play ball."
Further, said Duquette, he has always considered the Orioles as "really being like a town meeting and I hope that baseball can have the effect of unity within our community and be part of the healing process once we get back on a regular schedule."
The team's players, many of whom are involved with the community on a regular basis, understand the decision, said Duquette, noting that he saw some quotes from pitcher Darren O'Day, where he said not having a crowd at the stadium will allow the city to divert the resources to where they are needed.
"We have a lot of players that are doing good work in the community," he said. "O'Day does a lot with the Wounded Warrior Project, Adam Jones, our center fielder, lives here and he's a role model for a lot of kids within the city and rightly so."
Duquette said he's not sure how the game will go.
"It's going to be a little bit different than what people are used to," he said, noting that fans can still follow it on television and online.
"They'll be able to maintain continuity with the team," he said. "It's a very, very difficult call but we think under the circumstances it was required to try and play one of these ball games."
According to The Associated Press, the closed game is believed to be the first in Major League Baseball history. In addition, the game was moved up to 2:05 p.m. from its 7:05 p.m. slot to allow the team to avoid violating the 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.
The first two games of the Orioles/White Sox series were canceled because of the rioting, and will be made up in a doubleheader on May 28 at Camden Yards.
"It's definitely going to be uncharted territory," Orioles Manager Buck Showalter told the AP.
This weekend, the team will play its games in Tampa Bay, where it will be considered the "home" team.
Peter Schmuck of The Baltimore Sun said in an
opinion piece that the call was hard to make, but it is the right call.
"No, it's not really fair from a competitive standpoint and it's not fair to Orioles fans," he writes. "The 'demonstrators' who tore up the city on Monday night and made a sad mockery of the legitimate Freddie Gray protests succeeded in their desire to shut down normal city life, so the only logical thing for city and state officials to do is to try and deny them the opportunity to make things even worse."
Had the games been allowed to go on as scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday, they would have diverted police away from the locations in the city where they were really needed, he said.
The loss of four home games is not trivial, Schmuck added, because there are many people and businesses who work around the team's home schedule and depend on revenue from both the Orioles and Ravens' game days. Further, playing a game to an empty field sends a message that Baltimore is too dangerous, he said.
Watch the video here.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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