O's Camden Yards game Wed. closed to public

Violence stemming from the protests in Baltimore has compelled Major League Baseball to make some highly unusual scheduling decisions regarding the Orioles. After postponing the first two games of their series against the White Sox at Camden Yards, the Orioles announced that the series finale would start at 2:05 p.m. ET on Wednesday (instead of 7:05 p.m.), and that the ballpark would be closed to the public, presumably with the exception of media covering the team. All but empty. Unprecedented? MLB says it believes so.

White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers said he’s ready to deal with an empty stadium:

MASN confirmed it will be televising the game Wednesday, so locked-out fans will be able to watch on TV.

Further, the Orioles upcoming three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays, scheduled for Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at Camden Yards, will move to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. It’s possible a future series scheduled at Tampa Bay, a division opponent of the Orioles, would be moved to Camden Yards, but the Orioles made no such announcement Tuesday. Rays pitcher Chris Archer said this arrangement is what his team preferred.

Other than not deciding to do it all sooner by perhaps a day, this seems like the best course of action.

Here’s the full announcement from the Orioles:

The Orioles re-scheduled the postponed games of the White Sox series for May 28 in a day-night doubleheader, presumably which will be open to the public.

Other possibilities for venue changes this week had been floated, such as moving the White Sox series and Rays series to nearby Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., or to another neutral site, if Camden Yards wasn’t a reasonable place to play. Orioles owner Peter Angelos, although he never would say this publicly, probably wouldn’t want to use the Nationals home for his own team. Angelos has been bickering with the Nationals, over things such as broadcast rights, ever since the franchise moved from Montreal in 2005.

Considering the 10 p.m. curfew in effect in Baltimore for the next several days (if not longer), playing night games at Camden Yards, certainly with fans, would not have been possible. Further, with one of the Camden Yards parking lots being used as a staging area for some 2,000 National Guard troops, the idea of having a ballgame inside of Oriole Park, even during daylight hours, would be as awkward and distasteful as it would be impractical.

No fans, only a limited amount of media, but the game will go on Wednesday. (USATSI)

At least, playing during the day and without fans, the Orioles and White Sox do their business, get a game in — no matter how eerie it will seem — and move on.

This series of decisions is unique, though MLB has made similar maneuvers this before, notably in 2004, when the Marlins and Expos played two games at Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field because of a hurricane bearing down on Florida. The Cubs played the Astros at “neutral” Miller Park in 2008 because of Hurricane Ike slamming into Texas, and Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter in front of mostly Cubs fans.

Angelos, understandably, wanted O’s home games to be played in their home park — if not in front of the home fans. And, by switching with the Rays and moving that series to Florida, it buys some time to make future games happen in Baltimore.

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