Column: Fake baseball fans, and the 'roar' of the 'crowd'

Random midsummer baseball moment: Chicago Cubs first baseman Victor Caratini knocks a sharp seventh-inning single to center off White Sox reliever Jimmy Lambert. As Caratini darts toward first, the crowd erupts in cheers.

Or, rather: The “crowd” erupts in “cheers.”

On this day, and on all coming days as the 2020 baseball season finally begins, there is — and will be — no crowd. The seats of storied Wrigley Field are empty, its fans scattered to the virus-era winds.

And the “cheers” — air quotes hanging heavy — are recorded snippets amplified from an electronic soundboard after being airlifted out of “MLB The Show,” a video game about, yes, Major League Baseball.

MLB has its reasons to deploy its version of a laugh track. First, a game without ambient sound feels dull — a ghostly incarnation of its usual self and something baseball can’t afford right now, particularly after the tone-deaf weeks of union-management acrimony that made the season even shorter than it might have been. Completely noiseless games would simply draw more attention to the fact that something’s not quite right.

Also, as some players have said, the "crowd" noise obscures the muted strategy chatter and prevents the opposing team from pilfering in-game intel — also not something MLB wants right now (cough-Astros-cough).

Over the past few days’ exhibition games, everyone’s been getting used to it. Announcers, many perched in booths over deserted ballparks listening to the reactions of crowds that aren’t there, are hashing through the notion.

“I wasn’t necessarily in favor of it, but after last night’s game, I’m now a proponent. It really does add at least a little atmosphere,” Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Greg Brown said this week. “I think that some...

source https://www.chron.com/news/article/Column-Fake-baseball-fans-and-the-roar-of-the-15428657.php