Baltimore violence prompts Orioles to close doors
‘It’s about what’s best for the city and the safety of our people’
After a pair of postponements caused by rioting in Baltimore, the Orioles and Chicago White Sox will play Wednesday at Camden Yards in what is believed to be the first game without fans in major league baseball’s 145-season history.
Because of the unsettled environment in Baltimore, where rioters burned a drug store and set police cars ablaze on Monday night, officials moved the game up five hours from its original 7:05 p.m. starting time and closed it to the public.
In addition, Baltimore’s Friday-to-Sunday series against Tampa Bay was shifted from Camden Yards to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, with Baltimore remaining the home team and batting last.
“It’s all about what’s best for the city and the safety of our people,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “The last thing you want to do is put the fans in harm’s way. You have to err on the side of safety.”
Schools were closed Tuesday and the mayor imposed a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew. The announcement of the unique closed-doors game came late Tuesday afternoon, after the Orioles postponed games against Chicago on Monday and Tuesday.
“We were just trying to respond to the wishes of the public officials and protect the integrity of the schedule,” Dan Duquette, the Orioles executive vice-president of baseball operations, said in a phone interview.
This was Chicago’s only scheduled visit to Camden Yards. The first two games will be made up as part of a doubleheader on May 28.
“It would have been very difficult to make up all three games, so we needed to play that game on Wednesday,” Duquette said. “You just try to do the best you can in this kind of situation.”
The Baseball Hall of Fame and John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, said they did not think there ever had been a closeddoors big league game, although there have been instances in the minor leagues.
“It’s definitely going to be unchartered territory,” Showalter said.
Said Duquette: “It’s not ideal, but at least our fans will be able to follow the game on TV.”
Since 1987, the lowest attendance has been 746 when the White Sox hosted Toronto at Comiskey Park on April 9, 1997, according to STATS. The New York Yankees’
It’s definitely going to be uncharted territory
home game against the White Sox on Sept. 22, 1966, had a listed attendance of 413.
Thorn said the lowest attendance for a major league game appears to be six when Worcester hosted Troy in a National League matchup on Sept. 28, 1882.
At the minor league level, Iowa hosted Nashville in a June 2008 game of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League played behind closed doors because of flooding in Des Moines.
Closed-door games are more common in soccer. European soccer’s governing body last October ordered CSKA Moscow to play two Champions League matches behind closed doors for fan racism and told Serbia to play a pair of European Championship qualifiers without fans because of crowd disturbances and fireworks and missiles that were set off during a game against Albania.