Critic's Notebook: The Profound Oddness of Televised Pandemic Baseball

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From piped-in audio to fan-free seventh inning stretches to creepy virtual fans, baseball is back

On Saturday afternoon, Adam Duvall hit a screaming line drive into the right-field stands at Citi Field in Queens. The ball reached the second row before anybody could react, hitting a spectator in the head with a resounding "THWACK!" that could be heard through the stadium. The spectator in question was a jovial-looking dog, tongue lolling, wearing some sort of Mets bandana.

What baseball has become, in a world in which we're still not prepared to allow even partial crowds back to stadiums, is an experiment in minimalism, bordering on nihilism. In short, baseball has gone from Draft DayTake, for example, the portrait of loneliness at Fenway Park the other night when Alex Verdugo, wearing a live mic, stood solitary in the outfield and lamented the lack of fans to gab with between innings. "At least I would have people to talk to. Now? I got nobody.

ESPN has utilized a steady hum of nearly ambient noise, a general rumble punctuated by a gentle roar to accompany a home team rally. It's better than pure silence, but it doesn't mask on-field noise. Me, I love the disorganized cacophony of five players converging around the mound calling each other off to catch a pop-up. There's something pleasantly unfiltered when a player is unable to resist swearing after a strikeout.

Leave it to the good people at Fox, inventors of the glowing hockey puck, the glowing 10-yard-line and several other innovations that don't glow, to engage in total overkill. Fox's insistence on overbearing piped-in game audio is just a needless distraction.

 

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