On April 29, 2015, the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Chicago White Sox 8–2 in the first crowdless game ever played by Major League Baseball teams.[1][2] The lack of crowds was due to civil unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, an African-American man who was fatally injured while in police custody 10 days earlier. With all the civil unrest, there were insufficient security resources available for the game. The previous two games in the teams' series had been postponed, but the remaining game could neither be moved to another venue on short notice nor made up later in the season, so the decision was made to play the game at Camden Yards without allowing any fans to attend. The scheduled evening start time was also rescheduled to the afternoon for security reasons.

The stands were not completely empty; three times the usual number of reporters who covered a routine game were allowed in the press box to cover the game, which was telecast live, photographers roamed the stands taking pictures, team staff patrolled the stands to recover foul balls and home run balls, and three scouts also attended.[3] Some fans who wanted to see the game live gathered near the stadium's back gate to take in the limited views from that vantage point, while others took in the more expansive view of the field from nearby high-rise hotels.

Players and media alike described the experience of a game played without any fans present as a surreal experience. White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton attributed his team's loss to the effect of the crowd's absence and their awareness of the reason for it. Reporters covering the game said conversations from the field could be heard in the press box, and likewise television and radio commentators could be heard on each other's broadcasts.

The decision to play without a crowd was controversial. Critics said the team should have done its best to allow fans in so the divided city could heal, or else just postpone the game. They pointed out that while previous incidents of civil unrest had forced games to be moved or postponed, fans had always been allowed to attend. The Washington Post suggested that ongoing litigation between the Orioles and the Washington Nationals over revenues from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network cable channel, which carries both teams' games, may have led the Orioles to avoid moving the game to Nationals Park.[4]

April 2015 civil unrest in Baltimore

On the morning of April 12, 2015, Baltimore police officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American man, in the Sandtown–Winchester neighborhood on the city's western outskirts, on a charge of possessing a switchblade knife. He appeared to be in good health at the time of his arrest and did not resist arrest, although he reportedly requested an inhaler.[5] While being transported to the Western District police station to be booked, officers claimed Gray had become unruly in the back of the van and stopped several times to restrain and calm him. By the time they arrived, he had suffered severe injuries and would later undergo surgery for traumatic injuries to his spine at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.[6]

Gray went into a coma shortly afterwards. Protests over alleged police brutality that might have occurred on the van ride began on April 18 and continued after Gray's death the following day. By April 24, after the police had released records showing that Gray had not been injured either before or at the time of his arrest and the officers involved had been placed on paid leave pending investigation,[5] Governor Larry Hogan deployed state troopers to the city to assist in maintaining order.[6]

A group of police officers in helmets, carrying plastic shields with "POLICE" written on them, face the camera, on a city street at night. A bluish light glares into the right edge of the frame.
Baltimore police in riot gear

The following day, a march in the city's downtown Inner Harbor neighborhood started peacefully, but later turned violent, with some protesters smashing windows and vandalizing parked cars near Camden Yards, home stadium of the Baltimore Orioles Major League Baseball (MLB) team.[7] Inside the stadium, the Orioles' game against the Boston Red Sox had gone into extra innings, and the stadium was locked down temporarily to prevent violence in the adjacent streets from spilling into it.[2] Fans were also not allowed to leave until the police had restored order outside.[8]

Despite pleas from Gray's relatives that protests remain peaceful,[6] two days later riots erupted in several parts of the city after Gray's funeral. Roving gangs of youths broke windows, looted stores, lit fires, and threw cinder blocks at police, who in turn responded with tear gas, in several neighborhoods over the next two days. Governor Hogan called in the Maryland National Guard to supplement police efforts to restore order, and the state police requested assistance from their counterparts in neighboring states. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake decreed a 10 p.m.–5 a.m. curfew until further notice.[9] The Orioles postponed the first two games in a series of three against the Chicago White Sox as a result of the violence.[2]

Effect on Orioles' home games and decision to close doors

The two missed games were rescheduled as a doubleheader to be played in May. MLB arranged for the Orioles' next series, against the Tampa Bay Rays, to be played in St. Petersburg, Florida instead of Baltimore.[2] But the remaining game with the White Sox could not be accommodated so easily. The collective bargaining agreement between the teams and the players' union limits the number of days on which games can be made up later in the season,[b] and there was insufficient lead time to move the game to Chicago.[8]

Orioles' management decided to go ahead with the third game. To comply with the curfew, the game's start time was moved up to the afternoon from the night.[2] Because law enforcement was busy dealing with the aftermath of the riots and the possibility of further violence, the team decided no fans would be admitted. Those who had tickets to the game were allowed to exchange them for tickets of equal value to any other upcoming home game until June 30.[10]

Civil unrest, and other events such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had affected the baseball schedule in the past, forcing postponements or relocations of games,[10] and baseball games at lower levels had been played with spectators barred due to weather-related safety concerns (or, in one minor-league game, as a deliberate publicity stunt[8]). But this was the first crowdless game in a century and a half of major-league play. Rawlings–Blake called it "another sad day for our city".[10]

Possible role of business dispute with Nationals

The Washington Post observed that there was a more obvious solution the Orioles appeared not to have considered: playing the games at Nationals Park, home to the National League's Washington Nationals, in Washington, D.C., less than 40 miles (64 km) from Camden Yards. The Nationals were in the middle of a long road trip at the time and thus an MLB stadium a short distance from Baltimore was available.[4] But while baseball commissioner Rob Manfred appeared to have suggested that possibility was under consideration earlier that week,[11] the Nationals said later that neither MLB nor the Orioles had talked to them about it; nor had they made the offer themselves.[4]

At the time, the Post further noted, the two teams were in litigation with each other over revenues from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) cable channel, a joint venture which broadcasts their games. While the newspaper agreed there were logistical challenges, it pointed out that those had not caused any problems moving the Rays' series to Tampa Bay, and that similar moves to the venues of third teams had been made in the past. A spokesman for the Orioles would not comment on whether the team's litigation against the Nationals over MASN had affected their scheduling decisions, although an unidentified source with the team told the Post it had.[4]

Pregame criticism

Some commentators condemned the decision. White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas tweeted that the whole series should have been postponed. "Playing in front of an empty house makes no sense!"[12] ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann observed on his Twitter feed that the Orioles' were certain to break the MLB record for lowest attendance,[13] set in 1882 when just six fans paid[c] to see the National League's Worcester Ruby Legs play their penultimate game against the Troy Trojans, who had likewise had their franchise revoked by the league.[14]

Those who were to participate in the game, either as players or stadium staff, anticipated an unusual experience. Oriole backup Steve Pearce said he expected it to feel "like a backfield spring training game".[15] Tyler Flowers, Chicago's reserve catcher, said he looked forward to the respite from fans ridiculing him.[16] Ryan Wagner, Camden Yards' public address announcer, said on Twitter that he was trying to figure out how to do his job with no public to address. "'Surreal' is barely scraping the surface."[17]

Game day

The morning of the game, White Sox center fielder Adam Eaton jokingly tweeted that "we're going to try to take the crowd out of the game early", drawing some critical responses for making light of the situation[18] (although he also said that the absence of the crowd could cause problems for him and other outfielders, since they sometimes rely on crowd reaction to determine how to field hits[19]). The oddity of an MLB game played without any fans in the stands drew heavy interest, and many of the national media already in the city covering the riots and their aftermath applied for credentials to cover the game. All 92 available seats in the press box were taken, three times as many as had been for the first (postponed) game in the series,[20] and not enough for the media who did show up. "Ironically," The Baltimore Sun observed, "on a day when there were no fans in the stands, the press level was standing room only."[18]

Fan efforts to view game live

The decision to play the game behind closed doors did not pre-empt media coverage. MASN would carry it in the Baltimore market, with White Sox regular broadcaster WPWR-TV bringing it to Chicago area viewers. MLB.tv made it the free game of the day for its subscribers,[8] except for those in the Baltimore and Chicago areas, where it would be blacked out, in accordance with their policy.[19]

A stadium with three tiers of empty green seats under a pale blue sky, seen through a cast iron fence. At the left a silhouetted man on an elevated platform is at work; at the right, beyond the end of the seating tiers, is a modern high-rise building sheathed in green-tinted glass
View into the stadium from outside the back fence

Some fans were determined to see the game in person. They lined up outside one of the stadium's rear gates, where a limited view of the field was available, and relied on the radio and Internet to follow the game in detail. Others rented rooms on the upper floors of the Hilton Baltimore, which overlooks the stadium from right field, and watched from the balconies and roof.[22]

Fans in the former group had started gathering outside the gate three hours earlier; some had come from as far away as Chincoteague, Virginia, at the south end of the Delmarva Peninsula, two of whom had brought trash bags along to help with post-riot cleanup. "The city gets a bad rep back home. We're constantly sticking up for it", one of the Virginians told the Sun. "We wanted to do something. We know there's not a whole lot we can do."[22]

Also among those watching from the fence was Kweisi Mfume, former U.S. congressman from Baltimore, and head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who had originally come downtown to do a television interview but went over to the fence afterward. An Orioles season ticket holder since the 1980s, he recalled to the Sun having watched games at the team's former home, Memorial Stadium, and seeing pitcher Jay Heard, the franchise's first African-American player since its move to Baltimore from St. Louis, from the sections of the then-segregated stadium set aside for black fans. "It's surreal", he said. "It's kind of eerie, especially when you juxtapose it to what's happening on these corners that I've just left all over the city." He reserved judgement on whether the game should have been played, but observed that players' public comments on the situation expressed a desire to "give people for two or three hours a sense of normalcy during a very disruptive situation."[22]

One fan on the streets, Steve Orzol of Joppa, chose to protest the closure of the stadium to spectators. He walked up and down Camden Street carrying a sign showing the team's mascot bird with a tear in its eye, faulting the mayor for allowing this to happen. "[S]he needs to do the right thing", he said, and persuade MLB to open the game. "If you open up these gates, show the country that it's not as bad as you think Baltimore is. What is this going to do to tourism?"[22]

A mustached Caucasian man wearing a black baseball hat and a gray baseball jersey with "Baltimore" in orange script trimmed with black across the chest holds from the top, at waist level, a handmade sign with "Don't Forget Freddie Gray" written on it in black. Behind him are city streets with tall buildings and other people walking around
Brendan Hurson carrying his sign

Another protester, Brendan Hurson, a public defender, walked up and down Camden Street wearing an Orioles jersey and carrying a sign urging that Freddie Gray not be forgotten. He opposed the closure of the game to fans. "So many chances were lost by locking us out," he told The New York Times. "It sends the wrong message about what this city is really about."[23]

Fans who reserved rooms at the Hilton paid over $200 to do so. In return they were able to enjoy unobstructed views, supplemented by television and radio coverage; some invited friends. "They said it was no fans, but fans are watching wherever they can like us," one said. "Just to be able to look in and see this, it's tragic, but it's historic," another told the Sun expressing the hope that the divided city could unite around its baseball team.[22]