The stands were empty and the stadium eerily quiet. There was no walk-up music. No in-game promotions. Players in one dugout could easily hear conversations in the other.
"You didn’t even have to call down to the bullpen," former Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter told USA TODAY Sports. "You could just yell." Daily News
That 2015 game between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox was the first in MLB history to be played without fans in attendance, the result of unrest in the city following the death of an African American man, Freddie Gray, while in police custody.
Now, as the novel coronavirus continues to spread, the idea of holding sporting events without spectators in the United States has gone from far-flung hypothetical to legitimate possibility.
"You didn’t even have to call down to the bullpen," former Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter told USA TODAY Sports. "You could just yell." Daily News
That 2015 game between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox was the first in MLB history to be played without fans in attendance, the result of unrest in the city following the death of an African American man, Freddie Gray, while in police custody.
Now, as the novel coronavirus continues to spread, the idea of holding sporting events without spectators in the United States has gone from far-flung hypothetical to legitimate possibility.
