Recreating baseball ambience
After dropping a single into right field during an intrasquad game this week, David Peralta rounded first base to a familiar sound: a train whistle toottooting over the loudspeakers at Chase Field.
It was a small, subtle taste of what games are going to be like when this strange, abbreviated baseball season begins. There likely will be not be fans at Chase Field this year, but the Diamondbacks, along with baseball’s other 29 teams, will do what they can
to keep people from noticing.
That means playing walk-up music and cueing sound effects like Peralta’s “Freight Train” whistle. It means piping in ambient fan sounds. It means cranking up the decibels in response to the action on the field.
“It’s our goal to make every game feel and look as normal as possible for the players and coaches as well as the viewing audience,” Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall said. “For television and for those in the stadium playing, we want to make sure the ambiance is very similar.”
How it plays out is anybody’s guess. It could provide energy and electricity to an otherwise somnolent setting. It could sound so normal it will be easy to forget the ballpark is vacant. Or it could sound hokey or forced. It could serve to remind everyone of how abnormal this all is.
The Diamondbacks have been playing around with the sound and feel of Chase Field for weeks now. Last month, they were testing levels while players were hitting on the field, cranking up the sound based on how far batted balls were flying.
“I actually liked it a lot,” infielder Jake Lamb said. “I think it would be nice to have that buzz in the crowd so you’re not playing the game in complete silence.”
Closer Archie Bradley got a taste of that during his first outing of camp. He did not like it. “They have to play something, in my opinion,” he said. “The pitching with no noise was weird.”
He isn’t worried about getting the adrenaline flowing, saying everyone in baseball grew up playing in front of small crowds and didn’t have trouble then. “That’s where the competition (aspect) takes over for me,” he said.
Hall said the Diamondbacks plan to bring back many of the features fans have grown accustomed to seeing or hearing at Chase Field over the years. That includes at-bat songs and between-innings music as well as the sort of standard fare video-board elements such as the line score and the occasional instant replay.
The Diamondbacks won’t be using cutouts of fans like some clubs are planning to do, but Hall does like the idea of showing Zoom Rooms on the video board after big moments.
“We would have fans that would be on Zoom (video calls) and they would be up on (the video board), so after home runs you would see them,” Hall said. “Hopefully, television would integrate that as well. They could have messages to our players. They could be part of seventh-inning stretch. They could be a part of the pregame.”
What remains unclear is exactly how the in-game sounds will be administered. There will be a standard “buzz,” something replicating the drone of a crowd in the moments between action. But who decides how loud it will be on a two-out single to center or a routine ground out? Diamondbacks spokesman
Josh Rawitch said the club is waiting to receive guidance from Major League Baseball on those particulars.
Lamb wonders about that as it relates to big moments, particularly for the road team.
“I’m just curious to see how they do it,” Lamb said. “Let’s say there’s a popup, bases loaded, two outs. Center fielder coming in, shortstop and second base going out -- how loud can you turn up the noise? We all know there are places you go to on the road and it’s a sellout crowd and you can’t hear anything when you’re going for a pop-up. Sometimes games are affected by that one play.”
Bradley is curious how the lack of fans will affect players’ willingness to talk trash to each other. He wonders if players will be as “brave” to shout things as they used to be.
“I don’t think that will stop for me,” he said.
Lamb believes there needs to be some kind of sound for a variety of reasons. He said it feels awkward to cheer from the dugout in total silence. He thinks it might help to create some “competitive juices,” though he doubts players would have too much trouble conjuring them up on their own.
Lamb also said he would rather the television microphones not pick up every little shout and murmur.
“Throughout the course of a game, believe it or not, there are some inappropriate words said,” Lamb said. “I think I speak for multiple guys in saying that I don’t necessarily want people to hear those things that are said in those types of moments of frustration.”
Not everyone is on board with the piped-in crowd. Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon called it “stupid.”
“It’s like you have two of your senses that aren’t coinciding with one another,” Rendon said. “It’s like you’re looking at a pizza, but you’re smelling a hamburger. You hear noise, but you know nobody is in the stands. You don’t see anybody. It’s dumb. I’d rather listen to music.”
Some teams are openly talking about the potential for fans in the stands at some point this season. Hall has backed off that idea, saying he “felt a lot different two months ago about it than I do now.”
He acknowledges the possibility that piped-in crowd noise doesn’t land the way it is intended, but he thinks it is better than the alternative. He believes a team’s home park has to be taken into consideration, suggesting that closed-roof/dome stadiums, in particular, are more likely to benefit.
“At our ballpark, if we’re going to be playing a lot of games with the roof closed, I think without sound it might be even worse,” Hall said. “Without the sound, without the music, without having a PA, I think it would be that cavernous, echo feel about it. I think we need it.”