Sterile, silent and creepy: Diamondbacks season begins in empty Petco Park,
The few spectators find setting sterile and creepy
SAN DIEGO — Kole Calhoun’s teammates clapped and hollered from the visitors’ dugout, their cheers following his monster home run. By the time Calhoun crossed the plate, their commotion had died down, leaving Petco Park awkwardly quiet.
It was the kind of silence not known to a big league ballpark during a game – not in years past, anyway. It was a strange moment at the beginning of what feels certain to be a strange Major League Baseball season.
There were no fans at Petco Park for the Diamondbacks’ loss to the San Diego Padres on Friday night. There were hardly any people in the area surrounding the stadium. There was little to no energy in the ballpark.
It felt, in some ways, like a game on the backfields at spring training. Only it counted in the standings, one of 60 such games this season.
The Diamondbacks’ 7-2 loss to the San Diego Padres was witnessed firsthand by both teams and their traveling parties. In addition, there were close to 35 media members — reporters in the press box, photographers and videographers scattered throughout the stands — plus a collection of 20 or so Padres front office employees sitting in the second deck.
There were perhaps just as many people, if not more, who watched the game from the rooftops and balconies surrounding Petco Park. Occasionally, their voices could be heard by those inside the ballpark.
There was not much else to hear. The Padres, like every other MLB team will do this season, piped in artificial crowd sound, but they kept it at a dull drone most of the evening.
So when Ketel Marte singled to left to open the game, the Diamondbacks’ bench could be heard shouting encouragement. It could be heard at other moments, as well, like when the Diamondbacks’ Jake Lamb doubled in the third and when he walked in the fifth.
The drone was the only sound left when the Diamondbacks bench quieted down after Calhoun’s homer. As weird as it felt for anyone watching, it wasn’t noticeable to Calhoun.
“To be honest, not really,” he said. “Not having the fans there was definitely different. I think the (fake) crowd noise kind of helped. But once you start playing baseball and trying to really zone in, we’re all out there competing.”
“It felt like a spring training, intrasquad-type game, just from the standpoint of not having fans,” Diamondbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed said after an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium earlier in the week. “We’ll have to bring our own energy this year.”
Some players spent part of the game sitting under a shaded structure built adjacent to each dugout, erected for the purposes of social distancing. Coaches sometimes watched from the stands. They wore masks throughout the game.
The piped-in crowd, administered by the Padres’ game-day crew, grew louder in bigger moments, like when Jurickson Profar worked a walk against Diamondbacks lefty Madison Bumgarner to load the bases in the sixth inning.
When Eric Hosmer cleared the bases with a double, the fake crowd’s limitations came to light. Moments before the piped-in crowd “roared,” the group of Padres employees sitting in the stands could be heard emitting genuine emotion the instant the ball short-hopped the wall.
Profar bumped chests with teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. after the Hosmer double, an example of how celebrations involved more person-to-person contact than the league had hoped. Diamondbacks players – albeit with limited opportunities to celebrate – routinely bumped fists or elbows.
An hour after the game, the streets around Petco Park remained deserted. Traffic was light. Pedestrians made their way quietly.
“I’ve looked around the downtown streets and usually here in the Gaslamp (neighborhood) there are a ton of people,” Diamondbacks catcher Stephen Vogt said. “There just aren’t that many people walking around. It’s an eerie feeling.”
Perhaps soon it will begin to feel normal. But for a night, at least, the juxtaposition was striking. It was Opening Day, only without most of the aspects that make it Opening Day.
“A little weird not having fans,” Diamondbacks catcher Carson Kelly said. “You got that adrenaline once you got on the field and played against another team and other competition. I enjoyed it. It was my first Opening Day (in the lineup). Hopefully, there will be more to come.”