America’s pastime gives silence a try in Baltimore

BALTIMORE — If you ever wanted to know what a baseball sounds like hitting the back of a catcher’s mitt – like really wanted to know the full crack of leather colliding with leather at 87 miles per hour – then there was no better place to be than Camden Yards on Wednesday at 2:03 p.m., when Orioles righty Ubaldo Jimenez threw the first pitch of a historic fan-less MLB game.

The Orioles decided to move Wednesday’s previously scheduled night game to the afternoon and play in front of no fans in response to widespread protests that have consumed Baltimore for days. No one wanted to hear the crack of the ball or bat like this, and yet a packed press box and a few dozen fans lining up just outside of the centerfield concourse gate, where they could peer onto the field, did. And it was eerie.

Moments earlier, as is tradition in baseball, "The Star-Spangled Banner" blared over the public address system on an otherwise beautiful 73-degree day in Baltimore. The PA announcer asked for “Ladies and gentleman to please rise,” yet approximately 45,000 seats were empty, with no one there to stand. Seven Orioles players stood on the dirt near second base, looking at the flag, just past them, the few O’s fans who dutifully shouted “O’s!” at the line, “Oh, say can you see.”

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In the press box, the only full place in the house, it was so quiet you could hear incessant typing of reporters at keyboards. Players were still announced over the PA and music played before the game and between innings, even if typical fan-favorites felt discordant with the day (Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time” was about as weird as the quiet itself).

The White Sox went down 1-2-3 in the top of the first, but the Orioles would go on a tear to close the inning, notching six runs, including a three-run home run from first baseman Chris Davis, who smashed the ball toward the towering warehouses in right field. Ordinarily, a crowd would go wild as soon as they heard the crack of the bat. On Wednesday, you could hear the radio announcers making their call.

No fans or press were allowed on the concourse, so it’s unclear what exactly happened to Davis’s moonshot once it cleared the fence, but a single security employee could be seen roaming the outfield concourse after the hit. The Orioles eventually cruised to an 8-2 victory.

Before the game kicked off, Orioles manager Buck Showalter huddled with the umpires for the afternoon. Umpires’ feelings — or maybe just their heightened ability to hear everything — were a joking concern of the skipper’s in a pregame press conference hours earlier.

“I guess I’ll have to be careful whispering sweet nothings to the umpire from the dugout,” he said.

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