It will be an eerie thing to watch. Normally I would not take advantage of my MLB.tv subscription to tune in an Orioles-White Sox day game in late April, but something this bizarre is simply not to be missed. Adam Jones swings. Fly ball to deep left. The roar of the crowd . . . sorry, make that the silence of a completely empty stadium.
Considering the 10 p.m. curfew in effect in Baltimore for the next several days (if not longer), playing night games at Camden Yards, certainly with fans, would not have been possible. Further, with one of the Camden Yards parking lots being used as a staging area for some 2,000 National Guard troops, the idea of having a ballgame inside of Oriole Park, even during daylight hours, would be as awkward and distasteful as it would be impractical.
At least, playing during the day and without fans, the Orioles and White Sox do their business, get a game in — no matter how eerie it will seem — and move on.
This series of decisions is unique, though MLB has made similar maneuvers this before, notably in 2004, when the Marlins and Expos played two games at Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field because of a hurricane bearing down on Florida. The Cubs played the Astros at "neutral" Miller Park in 2008 because of Hurricane Ike slamming into Texas, and Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter in front of mostly Cubs fans.
What neither the Orioles nor MLB will ever say, but what must be on their minds, is the danger of a riot breaking out at the game itself. You start letting people into a game being played five miles from the center of the riot zone. Your only control over who comes in is the scanning of tickets - assuming, of course, you don't get a throng of rioters rushing the gates beyond anything stadium security can control. (And can stadium security even stop one today? Surely Baltimore police can't spare many officers to work this game today.)
Once the rioters have established enough of a presence inside the stadium, who knows what they might do? You want a glimpse of what it might look like when a baseball game succumbs to a riot? Ask the White Sox about that:
It's not just this game that's affected, either. The Orioles' "home games" this weekend against the Rays will now be played at the horrible Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, with the Orioles as the nominal home team. Fortunately for them, if a typical Tampa Bay crowd is in attendance, it will be a) tiny; and b) half Orioles fans anyway.
So you might ask: Why play this game at all? The truth is MLB has little choice. The White Sox have already been in town for two days and not a single game has been played yet because of the riots. They've already got to return to Baltimore on May 28 to play a doubleheader to make up those two games. If they don't play today, that's another off day lost for both teams and another special trip into Baltimore at some point later in the season, unless MLB wants to take another home game away from the Orioles and play the game in Chicago. I'm sure Peter Angelos would love that.
I expect the rioters' left-wing sympathizers not to be troubled in the slightest by this development. They considered it detestable that anyone would care about a CVS or some police cars when the brave fight for social justice rages. Major League Baseball? Are you kidding me? Find a way to blow up the stadium as far as they're concerned.
No one could seriously expect this development to give the rioters the slightest pause. We're messing up the Orioles? Oh no. We'd better stop what we're doing. Not a chance. I just thought you'd like to know about it. The repercussions are many when horrible human beings are given an excuse to wreak havoc, and when political leaders think it's a good idea to give them the space they need to destroy.
At least that space isn't going to include Camden Yards.
