Written by Ryan Dunn. Media by Ryan Dunn.
[divide]
It’s Wednesday, April 29th and the Baltimore riots are in full swing; business are being looted, buildings burned, and police and other law enforcement are fearing for their lives. But in another part of the city there are other things in full swing, bats. Yes, even with the riots, the show must go on.
The game between the Baltimore Orioles (10 – 10) and the Chicago White Sox (8 – 10) was delayed twice due to the riots and finally, so the game could get played, it was pushed from a night game to an afternoon game so no curfew rules were broken. Now while most of you are thinking “what is important about a baseball game during a riot?” I’ll tell you. This wasn’t a normal baseball game, the police and security usually at the stadium for the game were occupied by the riots. That means none could be at the Orioles home turf, which also means no one was allowed in Camden Yards. Yes you read that right; it was a professional baseball game with zero fans filling out the bleachers, a first for the MLB. There are usually just under 46,000 fans at each Orioles home game, so as you can imagine, that must have been a weird feeling for all the players.
The final score for the empty game was, Baltimore – 8 and Chicago – 2, with six of Baltimore’s runs coming in the first inning. Three of those six came from a three run homer hit by Chris Davis. Davis, who can be found on first base while on the field, has smacked 5 home runs this season and 161 in his eight year career.
Some of the players for Baltimore felt the awkwardness of the empty stadium very quickly after yelling with excitement due to the big home run
from Chris Davis realizing that there wasn’t thousands of others yelling along with them to cover their own cheers. There was one other player for Baltimore who was able to hit one out of the park on Wednesday, Manny Machado was able to get his fourth on the season and 37th of his career.
On the other hand, Chicago had a tough time with just three hits in the first seven innings. The Orioles’ Manny Machado allowed two of the three hits to score, because of a throwing error, resulting in the only points from the Sox. Other than those three hits, Chicago wasn’t making much noise in the empty stadium. Maybe they weren’t used to total silence and it threw them off of their game.
Baltimore’s next series will be held in Tampa against the Tampa Bay Rays, where they will be the “home” team for at least one game in the series. The decision was made to hold the whole series in Tampa because of safety concerns due to the riots. All MLB fans in Baltimore along with all of the other citizens in Baltimore are most likely praying for an end to the riots so they can live peacefully, rest, and rebuild.
