Yankees on board
Zack Britton remembers hearing Orioles broadcaster Gary Thorn as he tried to pitch in an an empty ballpark back in 2015. The now Yankees reliever, would like to avoid that awkward situation this season when MLB tries to play it’s 2020 season in the midst of a pandemic. Most teams will at least begin the seasons without fans in their ballparks, but the Yankees are now among the teams discussing piping in crowd noise.
“I think it’s a good idea if they’re going to allow some steady crowd noise to be pumped in. I think that would be good for the guys. Obviously gets really quiet out there,” Britton said after throwing an inning in an intrasquad scrimmage Thursday night. “I know they’ll probably play walkouts, you know,(walk-up) songs and things like that. But I definitely have heard of teams, including ours, that might be exploring putting in some type of crowd noise throughout the game. I’m not sure how loud it’s going to be or what that’s going to look like. But I think it’s a good idea.”
Catcher Kyle Higashioka said he is for something that breaks up the quiet.
“I don’t think I’d be opposed to it. We have some music playing out there right now very lightly while we’re playing, just to kind of break up the dead silence, which is it’s better than it was the first day where we were just playing in an abyss, just a void of sound,” Higashioka said. “So I wouldn’t be opposed to crowd noise.”
ON TRACK
Britton said that he has been pleased with how the Yankees’ COVID-19 testing has been going. The Yankees’ union rep said they have gotten their results on time and testing has been on schedule.
“Just from our team, I think things have gone well,