Tommy Hunter has been shushed before. Quite often, actually. By his admission, the Phillies reliever is pretty mouthy, even within the chatty confines of a baseball clubhouse, so being told to shut up isn’t anything new.
Never, though, had the request come through a bullpen phone from 400 feet away in the middle of a game.
But this was no ordinary game on April 29, 2015, a sun-splashed Wednesday in Baltimore. Amid ongoing protests and civil unrest after a 25-year-old black man died while in police custody, the gates to Camden Yards were closed and the Orioles hosted the Chicago White Sox in the only major-league game ever played without fans.
It’s clear now that it might not be the last.
As Major League Baseball brainstorms ideas for starting the season, a Marist poll last week showed that 91% of Americans think it’s a “bad idea” to attend sporting events until widespread testing and monitoring for the coronavirus becomes available. The Chinese Professional Baseball League began play last month in empty stadiums. The Korean Baseball Organization is bracing to do the same this week.
Indeed, public health concerns may dictate that MLB’s likeliest scenarios will involve playing in empty stadiums for several weeks and maybe even the duration of a truncated 2020 schedule.
And if any Phillies player knows what that would be like, it’s Hunter, who sat through nine innings in a desolate ballpark five years ago as a member of the Orioles bullpen and never thought he would be back in that situation again.
“It was weird,” Hunter said by phone last week. “We talked about it after the game for a while, and it was definitely really weird. The situation in Baltimore played a large part in the uncomfortable part of it, but they did what they had to do. This is once again a thing where safety is a concern.”
Hunter is waiting out baseball’s hiatus with his wife and two sons in Clearwater, Fla., where he’s rehabbing from season-ending elbow surgery last July. If the season opened on time, the 33-year-old righthander would’ve been on the injured list. Now, though, he expects to be ready whenever MLB returns.
Thinking back to that day in Baltimore, Hunter recalls so much. He didn’t pitch in the 8-2 Orioles victory that was completed in a brisk two hours and three minutes, but from the expanse of unoccupied green seats to catcher Caleb Joseph’s pretending to sign autographs for invisible fans before the game, it was unlike anything he had seen across 12 big-league seasons.
Mostly, though, Hunter remembers the quiet.
“You hear everything. Everything,” he said. “That’s the big difference, man. I don’t necessarily like that. I like just the noise of the fans. They block out a lot of stuff that you don’t hear, and I like that.”
Funny how Hunter found that out.
The Orioles sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs in the first inning against White Sox starter Jeff Samardzija. And when Chris Davis crushed a three-run home run to right field, Hunter reacted the way that he normally would. He jumped out of his bullpen seat and began hooting and hollering. Typical loudmouth stuff.
“There was a call to the bullpen and they politely asked me to please stop talking so loud because they could hear me in the dugouts,” Hunter said. “I found out that talking (smack) was not the ideal situation to be doing with no fans. Because, I mean, you could hear me clearly, and they said I couldn’t do that anymore.
“It’s a stadium and it’s me. I’m a little louder than everyone else. I like to have fun and talk here and there, but man, when there’s no fans in the stands, can’t really get too excited.”
Unless, of course, the echo of empty ballparks becomes the norm for 80 or 100 games, or however many MLB can shoehorn into what would be its most unusual season ever.
Chase Utley said recently that he can’t fathom playing in front of no fans. As an icon from the last great era in Phillies history, the retired former second baseman recalled the adrenaline that he derived from packed houses at Citizens Bank Park, including a 257-game sellout streak.
“Part of what is exciting about major-league games is the fan interaction and the amount of noise and just the excitement that that creates,” Utley said. “I think it’ll be definitely an adjustment. Until the guys experience it they probably don’t know what they’re getting into.”
Having actually gone through it, Hunter takes a different view.
If baseball is able to return this summer as a reality-TV program, fans likely will look to the sport as much as ever as relief from the physical, financial, emotional and psychological toll of the virus. Ratings could soar. In that environment, Hunter suggested players might be inclined to reveal more of their personalities.
“Everybody’s going to be watching this,” he said. “Everybody’s been home for a long time. Everybody’s ready to see sports. Everybody’s ready to try to transition on as best you can from what’s been going on the last couple months. Whether they’re in the stands or not, baseball’s America’s pastime and it’s something a lot of people miss right now. I think that passion is going to play out on the field.”
Maybe so. But what about Bryce Harper waving his arms and screaming at the crowd after launching a homer at Citizens Bank Park? That would look silly without fans, wouldn’t it?
“I think 100% you’re going to have that,” Hunter said. “You don’t think Bryce Harper is going to know what camera is on him when he slides into second base? He’s going to be in that camera. It’s going to be funny. People are going to be at home jumping up and down. There’s going to be videos everywhere of that.
“There’s a lot of guys on each team that, that’s kind of their thing. That’s what they do. If that’s the direction that (MLB) decides to go, you’re going to see a lot of that stuff. It’s going to be interesting.”
Take it from Hunter, though: It won’t be anything close to ideal, even if it’s better than nothing.
“It definitely took energy out of the game, not having any fans there,” he said. “You’re still playing the game, and that part is OK. But it’s amazing how much of an impact fans have on what’s happening out there that maybe they don’t even realize.”
———
©2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer
Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.