A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
That was an odd and unsettling sight in Baltimore yesterday, the Baltimore Orioles playing the Chicago White Sox in Camden Yards without a single fan in the seats. Apparently the city’s leaders thought the fans would pack the stadium, have a good time, and start a riot.
Players, but no fans, in Camden Yards. Baltimore Sun.
Let’s hope that kind of foolish fear never again locks fans out of a Baseball stadium in America. European and other foreign soccer fans are hooligans who attend matches looking for, and starting, trouble. American baseball fans come to games looking for a good time and behave themselves, a few dust-ups between drunks in the parking lot not withstanding.
Were I Baltimore’s mayor, I would have said, “Let’s go to the ball game and have a good time.” I would have banned booze. I would have led a moment of silence for Freddie Gray before the first pitch. And I would have trusted the fans to cheer for the Orioles, and not throw bricks at the Sox.
But because convenience and drug stores had been robbed and trashed, the city’s and state’s leaders evidently reckoned opening Camden Yards to the fans would result in the hot dog stands being looted and torched; that deranged fans would pour onto the field, stealing not bases but the bags, punching everyone in sight, sending hundreds to the emergency rooms with bloody noses, and giving the city another black eye.
I disagree. It’s bad enough when thugs and thieves hijack peaceful protests, burn down buildings, and injure law enforcement officers. But it’s much worse when elected officials and the constabulary let those thugs and thieves intimidate the community into locking the doors to the baseball stadium, force a game with no fans, and run the Orioles out of scheduled home games with the Tampa Bay Rays. That’s cowardice, not leadership.