The ongoing unrest in Baltimore has resulted in a pair of cancellations for the Orioles, and further tweaks to the team’s schedule this week will be necessary. Here’s an explanation from the club.
Orioles announcement regarding schedule changes pic.twitter.com/nwCDyqjzWs
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 28, 2015
While is it not the place of any sports based commentator to delve into the realm of social and political discussion, from time to time those things break into the sports world and this week in Baltimore is one of those cases. Both their games yesterday and today against the White Sox have been postponed for fan safety reasons, but that is nowhere near the oddest move being made. Just three games into a nine game home stand, changes had to be made to each of the other six games this week.
Starting with the simple, the canceled games from Monday and Tuesday will be made up as a double header on May 28th. Specifically, tickets from the Tuesday game will be valid for the double header, with tickets for any other canceled game being eligible for exchange for any game according to the Orioles twitter. This is where the normalcy ends. Tomorrow’s 2:05 PM game between the Orioles and White Sox will be played in Baltimore, but the gates to the stadium will be closed. While attendance has been down in some areas of the country, the Orioles played in front of a packed house of more than 43,000 fans Sunday, so this should be quite the contrast.
This decision was likely made because the White Sox were already in town and don’t want to have to make up three games later on in the season, but with advance notice, the final three games of the homestand have been moved to St. Petersburg. Right now, the Rays are in New York City as the first part of their own nine game road trip, but will now instead play three games against Baltimore in their home stadium with Baltimore as the home team. This is reminiscent of the 2007 season when the Cleveland Indians were snowed out of the first two series of the season, making up one in Milwaukee against the Angels and another against the Mariners all throughout the year including one game in Seattle as the home team.
Of course, this may have been more unpredictable than a snow storm in North East Ohio in April, but it is also much more serious. Even after September 11th in New York City, the Yankees were back playing baseball within a week and only had to make up three home games. While that was a time of mourning taken off by every team in baseball, this is purely inspired by fan safety.
The Orioles next return home against the Blue Jays on May 11th and the situation will hopefully be much calmer at that point.
