Camden Yards, the home stadium of the Baltimore Orioles, has almost 46,000 seats. And during the Orioles’ game against the White Sox on Wednesday afternoon, every single one of them was empty (with the exception of a few scouts). It was believed to be the first major league baseball game ever played without any fans in the stands. Though city officials decided to let the game go on after pushing it back from Monday and Tuesday and changing the time to earlier in the day (due to curfews), fans were locked out because of safety concerns. Security forces in Baltimore were focused on other areas of the city, which has experienced unrest, protests and riots after the death of Freddie Gray. Reporters present at the game wrote that the empty, quiet stadium was rather somber, as sounds of sirens could be heard from outside the stadium. Team members noted that they hadn’t practiced in a silent stadium, but as the team’s manager, Buck Showalter, told The New York Times, “To say that something we’re going to go through on a baseball field—playing in the big leagues—is difficult is really insensitive to everything else that’s going on. It’s a small thing for us comparatively speaking” …
