It's terrible what's happening in Baltimore right now. Sadly, this has become all too common a scene all over the country, but I don't think I've seen it this bad in a while. Of course, I have some family in Baltimore, too, so I'm watching this one even more closely and hoping for their safety. Hopefully this all ends soon and things in Baltimore get back to normal.
This unrest has also put the city, the Orioles and Major League Baseball in an unenviable position. The Orioles were scheduled to host the White Sox in a three-game series at Camden Yards. It's Chicago's only visit to Baltimore. With the public safety concerns being what they were, they had no choice but to cancel Monday night's game. Same thing with the second game of the series, especially with a city-wide 10 p.m. curfew being put into effect. Endangering the public just to play a baseball game seems silly, but these games also need to be played, especially with the White Sox not coming back to Baltimore this season.
There were several options they had regarding the third game of the series on Wednesday. The one they chose I've never seen before. Wednesday afternoon's game will be played. In an empty stadium. No fans allowed. Then the White Sox will come back to Baltimore on a mutual off day at the end of May and they'll play a doubleheader.
While this isn't something we've seen in Major League Baseball before, it's not totally unprecedented. FIFA makes teams play inside of empty stadiums all the time, usually as some sort of punishment for fan behavior. (I think there are still some national teams that aren't allowed to play home games at all. They have to play their "home" games in a neighboring country, for various reasons.) And I know it's happened at least once in college basketball where there was that flu outbreak or something during a conference tournament in the early 90s. But this is the first time I've seen it in one of the four major U.S. professional sports.
Of course, they could've moved the games to Washington. That's been done before all kinds of times. The Yankees once had to play a game in Shea Stadium because of a structural problem at Yankee Stadium, and teams have series moved because of weather all the time. (Remember when the Cubs started the season with home games in Milwaukee?) And, of course, there was that famous six-week road trip to end the season for the Montreal Expos when Olympic Stadium began to fall apart and they had to play all their home games in their opponents' stadiums.
I also remember a couple years ago when the Marlins played a home series against the Mariners in Seattle, which is about as far away from Miami as you can get and still be in the continental U.S., because of a U2 concert in their stadium. That's what the Orioles are going to do over the weekend. They're playing the Rays and the series has been moved to Tampa, but the Orioles will still be the "home" team for those three games.
Moving the weekend series to Tampa was probably a smart move. The Dodgers did the same thing during the Rodney King riots, and since that option was available, it gives MLB a chance to make sure the games get played without having to worry about any potential problems in Baltimore.
Although, I do have one question regarding that. The Orioles and Rays are in the same division. That means they play three series a year against each other in each city. Why not just swap this series in Baltimore with one in Tampa later in the season? That way the Orioles wouldn't lose the home games (although, I think MLB does have some sort of provision for that if a situation like this arises) and they wouldn't be in the awkward position of playing 12 games against each other in one city and only six in the other. Baltimore still goes to Tampa Bay two more times, so that scenario could've worked.
Unfortunately, with the White Sox, that's not an option. The way the MLB schedule is structured, you only play teams outside of your division once at home and once on the road. It creates very little leeway if there are rainouts or other extenuating circumstances that necessitate a postponement (like these, for example). As a result, they were left trying to figure out how to reschedule games without the luxury of a return trip, where they could simply turn one of the days into a doubleheader (although I'm a little surprised that a doubleheader when they play in Chicago on 4th of July weekend wasn't put forward as an option).
The Orioles, the White Sox and Major League Baseball were put in a very difficult situation. They don't know what the right answer is, or if there even is one. They couldn't play the games in Baltimore and act like everything was normal. That much was certain. So this was the solution they came up with.
Is it fair? Probably not. The Orioles will lose a whole lot of revenue by not playing two games and playing a third in front of an empty house, as well, as of course, by playing a home series in St. Petersburg, Fla. Then there are the Orioles fans, many of whom have nothing to do with the riots and want to go back to feeling safe in their own city. They deserve the chance to see their team play and won't be able to because of all this. The sense of normalcy that watching or going to the Orioles game won't be there, which means they won't have that distraction and will be stuck thinking about the riots 24-7.
Playing the games under these circumstances I'm sure will be weird for the players, too. You know they're going to think about it. Just like the Giants and Jets couldn't escape the shadow of 9/11 in the weeks after the tragedy and the Red Sox turned the Marathon bombings into "Boston Strong" and a World Series title. But they've got a job to do and playing baseball might be the only thing that seems normal right now.
Once things calm down and Baltimore is back to being the great city it is, the Orioles will help their city get back to normal. But right now, unfortunately, the Orioles can't play games in Baltimore. Even if that's what the city needs the most.
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