Here’s a photo of the Baltimore Orioles playing the Chicago White Sox this afternoon in a game that is closed to the public because of the recent unrest:
The most salient fact is that a young man — about the same age as the baseball players — had his spine snapped for no apparent reason while in police custody. Certainly the most minor repercussion of all is that a bunch of millionaires will play a game without spectators.
But despite the flippancy of my headline above, seeing Camden Yards empty like that makes me really sad. Not about the stupid game. About everything.
Open thread.
[Photo via Buzzfeed]
trollhattan
Guess I need to stop taking my kid bird-watching at the local refuge.
kilgore trout
It’s like a little league game for orphans….
Belafon
I’ll put my link here since it applies more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/29/1381201/-The-world-wants-to-know-exactly-happened-to-Joseph-Kent.
Watch how Joseph Kent is arrested. It’s out of a movie.
Poopyman
It’s a beautiful spring day in Maryland. Hope it’s a peaceful evening, because it’s going to be beautiful, too.
Betty, it’s easy to let events get you down (especially seeing Zandar below and the pic above). Step away from the computer and go for a walk in the neighborhood. I’m gonna feed the cats and go finish some stuff I need for the weekend.
Tree With Water
“How the Rays feel”. Bravo.
I hope someone has the brains to mic the game for posterity. You must be able to hear a pin drop..
Mr. Twister
David Simon has some things to say about Balmer: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish
Geeno
I can’t wait to see the highlights on ESPN
Frankensteinbeck
Your paragraph starting ‘The most salient fact’ is absolutely 100% important. Perspective. Priorities. Riots less destructive than the ones around game championships are a tiny thing compared to the brutal truth that black men can be and are murdered by the police on a regular basis, for blatantly racist reasons and with zero repercussions. That in some areas, this is not merely condoned, but encouraged. Whatever you think is bad about what’s going on in Baltimore, that one is by far the most important.
JPL
@Belafon: This is from wesley lowery’s twitter feed
I watched Joseph Kent spend hours trying to clear young people from street & keep them from rioting last night in Baltimore.
https://twitter.com/wesleylowery
The Ancient Randonneur
This is going on in Texas:
BGinCHI
If he were playing in that game, Darryl Strawberry still would’ve gotten heckled.
ET
From what I have seen the Orioles “won” the game. But I want to to know how do we really know they won the game if there was no one there to watch?
sharl
Yeah Betty, I’m gonna go with what Poopyman said upthread, and take a walk along the nearby river.
Don’t know if the insertion of a little levity is thematically doable with your OP, but for your consideration: one of several tweets from beloved and adorable red panda Twitter presence Darth, who apparently got into Camden Yards!
opiejeanne
@Tree With Water: mlbtv will be showing the game online, if you have a subscription. I may tune in.
JPL
@ET: Well pretend people did get autographs…
https://vine.co/v/e7Z0T35Xg2n
Hal
If only the protesters would look to all the peaceful protests of the past that have worked so well:
https://thenib.com/great-moments-in-peaceful-protest-history-44bdadb44cf
chopper
@ET:
quantum mechanics would dictate that the game was both won and lost.
opiejeanne
Some friend of a friend posted a list of Freddy’s arrests (but not convictions) with the comment that it gave perspective on the rioting or something. We think this guy is saying that Freddy wasn’t worth the rioting, but he has denied that that’s what he meant as well as denying that his death is justified by his arrest record. Despite the denials we are pretty sure those two things are exactly what is meant..
Oh, the other charming story is that Freddy had recently had back surgery, so he was supposed to be lying in bed or something, therefore having his neck snapped was on him. .
opiejeanne
@JPL: That is great.
Roger Moore
@ET:
There were cameras and news people. There are some pictures where you see the empty stands behind home plate, but the press box is as full as ever. Very strange.
Hal
@The Ancient Randonneur: Stay paranoid Texas.
Oh, and this gem:
scav
Honestly, there’s likely a lot of symbolism to wrung out that photo Something about the Gated Ghettos and their Gated Games. Something about the Bubbled Classes. Something about Virtual Circuses. So long as the games go on the real audience, screw the on-the-ground locals, run a canned sound track of cheering, invest in a little CGI and save on hassle, wear and tear of physical extras. The Greenscreens of Summer.
Also, If the Sox lost, isn’t that just one more sign of how the Whites are being Oppressed by Still More P.C. pandering?! (somehow that comes out in Elon’s voice in my head.)
Tree With Water
@The Ancient Randonneur: Thank God someone is on the ball..
dedc79
Why a team that plays in a city (tampa) that can host outdoor baseball games year round, chooses instead to play in a hideous indoor ballpark, I’ll never understand. But that’s one major reason why nobody goes to Rays games, isn’t it?
If you dropped Camden Yards in Tampa, i’d have to think attendance would improve considerably.
Starfish
@Belafon: An attorney was going to make an announcement at 4pm, but I have no clue what he said. And no one has reported on it yet.
Mike J
@dedc79: Doesn’t it rain every afternoon in Florida?
Betty Cracker
@dedc79: Never been to Florida during the summer, have you? ;-)
The reasons for the Rays’ failure to consistently attract a decent crowd are many and hotly debated, but lack of an open stadium isn’t one of them. It’s too hot in the summer — an energy-sapping, moist heat that will just kick your ass — plus Tampa Bay is the lightning capital of North America, particularly during summer afternoons. It rains sideways, almost every afternoon in the rainy season.
The Rays would do better with a retractable dome stadium in Tampa rather than St. Pete. Tropicana Field is a dump (honest to god, it has the ambiance of a Sam’s Club), and it is separated from the area’s major population centers by long bridges that tend to get snarled in traffic.
I don’t think there’s much support for the citizens’ building a billionaire playground, though. So it wouldn’t surprise me if we lost the team, particularly after the talent fire sale that occurred after last season. Le sigh.
muddy
@scav: Remember the riot at Comiskey Park and they had to forfeit the 2nd game of a double header to the Tigers?
catclub
@Belafon: State of Seige?
gene108
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I think Obama should, in response to the Texas National Guard monitoring military training exercises, nationalize the TNG and place it under Federal control and then order them to go home.
Mandalay
While people in Baltimore are being held without bail, or with bail set at half a million dollars, consider this case: a cop with a prior DUI conviction was three times over the limit, caused an accident while driving the wrong way on an expressway, and killed two people. Right now he is in hospital, and will doubtless eventually be charged, and have to face the music. But what I can’t understand is why he has not been suspended, and remains on full pay.
There are so many double standards when comparing the way cops are treated compared to the rest of us, and President Obama pointed out yesterday that he can’t do much about that personally. But surely to goodness something that police departments can do themselves is to suspend officers, and stop paying them, when they have obviously done something really bad. Incidents like this just reinforce the perception that cops are a law unto themselves.
Mike J
@gene108: It’s not the National Guard, it’s the State Guard. Ironically, they’re the official militia of Texas, i.e. the people the 2nd Amendment explicitly name as having the right to bear arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Guard
Goblue72
The last time America was torn by a series of urban riots, it elected Dick Nixon.
That’s what I fear again.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@muddy:
I knew someone else would remember that. But it was a riot by white dudes, so it doesn’t count as a “real” riot even though they did enough damage to cancel the game.
Howard Beale IV
I wonder if Baltimore was using Stingrays during the meele.
Just asking questions……
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, too, since this is an open thread, I will take this semi-anonymous opportunity to say that I really, really don’t want to take this trip to Florida tomorrow (tonight, actually) to help my mom take care of my terminally ill stepbrother. I know it’s the right thing to do, but man do I not want to do it.
muddy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m sorry you have to.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): It’s a hard thing, but like you said, it’s the right thing to do. You’ll be a source of strength to your mom.
Diana
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I am also sorry. But your arrival will help your mom. Think of her.
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): My thoughts are with you. That is hard as hell. Two years ago my step-father died of mesothelioma and it was pretty bad.
Hang in there.
sharl
I’m so sorry to hear that Mnemosyne (iPhone). My thoughts are with you. Take care.
Germy Shoemangler
@Goblue72:
That is on my mind as well. And the media can’t get enough of showing the civil unrest. I remember how it was wall-to-wall ebola coverage until after the election. Civil unrest makes exciting tv.
I’m certain GOP strategists are putting their heads together: “How can we benefit from this?”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
@Diana:
I talked to my mom today and she sounds VERY relieved that I will be there, too, so that takes a little of the edge off. I actually timed my flight so I get in half an hour before she does even though I’m flying from CA and she’s flying from IL. Seriously, most expensive airport pickup EVER.
LanceThruster
How’d the Baltimore Symphony free outdoor concert go?
Roger Moore
@Goblue72:
And after the Rodney King riots, it elected Bill Clinton. There was a hell of a lot more going on in 1968 than just the riots, and there’s a hell of a lot more going on in 2015.
PaulW
The Orioles will play as the home team against Tampa this weekend, instead of playing in Baltimore as scheduled.
This overlooks the fact that due to poor fan turnout at the Trop, the Orioles usually enjoy home-field advantage at the domed stadium anyway.
Or did I tell that joke already?
balconesfault
Or … they could have held the game, and donated all the gate proceeds to community redevelopment in Baltimore.
Gate for the average O’s game is probably close to a million.
Most of which is usually siphoned off to the pockets of multi-millionaire players and billionaire owners who will rarely spend a dime in the local neighborhoods …
mclaren
Getting rid of the audience is a start. Now if we could get rid of the players, we’d be getting somewhere!
C.V. Danes
What if we had a baseball game and no one came…