Wednesday's game in Baltimore is obviously unprecedented. Until now, there'd literally never been a major-league game witnessed by exactly zero paying customers.
But empty seats? Well, there have always been many thousands of empty seats.
- In 1979, only 653 people showed up for an A's game in Oakland.
- In 2011, only 357 -- give or take, and unofficially -- people were in the ballpark for a Marlins game. Everybody else had an excuse: Hurrican Irene.
- In the 1980s and '90s, the Cleveland Indians routinely drew just a few thousand fans for weeknight games ... in a stadium with more than 70,000 seats. So while the ballpark was never technically empty, it often looked practically empty.
- In 1966, only 413 fans were in the stands for a game at Yankee Stadium.
- According to one source, a rainy Chicago-Troy game in 1881 drew only a dozen customers...
- but according to John Thorn, the official record for smallest attendance was 6, for a Worcester game in 1882.
In a major-league game, that is. In 2002, the Charleston Riverdogs hosted "Nobody Night," with the gates closed to fans -- thus ensuring an attendance of exactly zero -- until after five innings were in the books, when fans were allowed inside.
Anyway, there's nothing new about empty seats, or being able to hear players' conversations via your TV or radio. In the fifth inning of Wednesday's game, Hawk Harrelson said, "It's weird. But not as weird as I thought it would be."
Which seems about right. Ultimately it's still baseball, and every player on both teams has played in practice games or Arizona Fall League games or minor-league games with very few spectators. It's weird. But it's not that weird.
