So they're playing a game without fans

I thought it would be hard for the White Sox to play a game against the Orioles amid soul-shaking unrest in Baltimore that didn't seem ghoulishly out of place, but a rushed Wednesday day game closed to the public--the first of its kind in any recorded MLB history--is just the kind of surreal that can slide along with the rest of this week in the Charm City.

Excluding the fans seems at its core, self-defeating (what is a ball game without the fans?) but also speaks to how far we've moved beyond the simple setup of putting on show to draw people through the turnstiles, to the more adult concerns of churning through a marathon schedule, fulfilling TV contract obligations, and getting to the next town. They don't need gate receipts to fill out the bills every month. They certainly don't need to win over the hearts of an aggrieved and distracted Baltimore populace to complete the needs of their trip.

It's still a bizarre fix. The Orioles' relations with the Washington Nationals are reportedly acrimonious enough that they never even inquired about playing in DC. A doubleheader a month from Tuesday will fill out the rest of the series, they just have to play one game on the edge of the void before going back to business as usual.

We've been staring at games developed for public presentation for so long, it will be fascinating to see what elements are stripped away at the first opportunity. Walk-up songs and fireworks seem like the obvious things that will be scrapped for the day, but how much more subdued do players become without the energy and attention of a live audience? How does communication geared around secretively passing instructions amid crowd noise change? Does it at all? How many other ceremonial items like this will they cling to for normalcy?

#Orioles WILL have a national anthem at Camden Yards today. Not clear if it will be a live performance or recording. @FOXSports @FoxNews

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) April 29, 2015

Lurid curiosity is definitely ruling the day, since Morosi is also reporting that the Orioles have received more credential requests than they have spots. Also Morosi, a national reporter, is there, which is telling enough for a game between two slow-starting ballclubs. Because of this, a game that offers the possibility of being jarringly intimate--manager-umpire fights audible, players being able to hear announcers, cracks of the bat echoing through the park like gunshots--will also be a media circus, with everyone getting blitzed with questions about how weird it was, a self-fulfilling line of inquiry since this will also be the most covered game of the season for both teams. 

Hawk is a element. He repeatedly and firmly endorsed the conduct of the Chicago Police during the NATO protests a few years back--something far less relevant to current protests and riots to the proceedings he was being paid to observe at the time --and it's not hard to map out his reaction to the events of the past week from there. It would stand to reason that he would be approached about how to handle such a sensitive and widely-monitored broadcast, but this is the same guy who bragged in a recent profile about how he wants to remain unbowed from the type of instincts that lead him to physically confront members of opposing teams for on-field conduct. There's an element of dread to imagining what he might say or prescription he would offer, which is the most normal thing about this game.

Mostly, MLB is ill-equipped to develop an appropriate response to this situation. They're the wrong organization to put together any kind of cogent statement about the elements at play here, and the teams, coaches and players involved are at best going to seem underinformed and uninvested in their surroundings if questioned on them. Even the journalists present are being yanked out of their element. Things will be better when MLB and the White Sox get the hell out of Baltimore. At least they seem to be expediting the process.

Minnie Minoso: dead at 90, unbeaten

More than three years ago now, in the weeks leading up to what wound up being Minnie Minoso's second-to-last shot at the Veteran's Committee vote for the Hall of Fame, the White Sox went through the exercise of a full-blown press event to stump for his candidacy. ESPN's Pedro Gomez hosted, fellow Cubans Luis Tiant and Tony Perez appeared and spoke alongside a collection of former teammates led by Billy Pierce. In the US Cellular Field conference room, Gomez acted as prosecutor, running through testimonies with the goal of proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that Minnie deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.

The defense rested.

So fervent was the Sox push, that there was even a cadre of bloggers present; myself included, and just to even further curry favor of the audience, the Sox presented us with an elaborate lunch before the testimonies started. Not knowing the protocol, a group of us hung back, until Minnie rolled by himself and extolled us to get started. It was kind of his party after all, and we weren't matching his intended vibe.

Placed aside token rattling off of Minoso's statistics, the testimonies strained a bit after lauding his five-tool skillset; they were attempting to articulate something abstract and hit upon the urgent necessity of his career. Minnie was older than everyone present, but it was striking how everyone, both fellow Cuban players he blazed the trail for, and white teammates, talked about him like a patriarch. That tone picked at the motivation for the ceremony: Minnie was old, no one was talking about his death, but it was time to start acknowledging that he couldn't wait forever. The Hall of Fame is a museum, but the ceremony is for the individuals involved. As much as Minnie wanted it--and he did, sincerely--his friends wanted to be with him for his culmination.

It's hard, not to be angry.

There's an injustice, an indignity, for a man at the end of a brilliant, unrepeatable career and life, to be transformed into a resume-stuffer, stacking up accomplishments to place alongside "First black Latino in MLB," "integrating Chicago baseball," so it can be accounted for its worth. Minoso's legacy faces the same obstacles of any conversation about racism today, a misunderstanding of integration to be like prohibition; something that was lifted at a specific date and done, rather than an agonizing process, with "hit-by-pitches" being the only vague statistical measure that can communicate staring down racial hatred so visceral it took the form on assault on Minoso's very body with no guarantee anyone would have his back when he dusted himself off.

But Minoso never wore these frustrations. He was not built to. Of the challenges and insults he faced, it was insignificant. He traveled from Cuban sugarcane fields, toiled in the Negro Leagues, sat behind lesser white players until he got his shot, kicked everyone's ass at a Hall of Fame level for a decade, lived out his retirement as a conquering hero counseling dozens of Cuban ballplayers he kicked in the door for, taking in Sox games whenever he felt the notion, and pushed his Cadillac around his city until his heart gave out.

Minoso said on record, many times, that his dream was to be in the Hall of Fame. It's a construct, an artificial and arbitrary honor, but Minoso believed as much as anyone in the code of ethics and tradition built around this game. But the failure to honor and completely recognize Minoso before his leaving us is our own, not his.