A View From The Mound In A Sea Of Empty Seats

There’s a distinct hum in the background as the pitcher leans in, taking in the signs. Step back, pause, maybe eye the runner at first. He winds into his delivery like he’s done a million times before, and hurls in a curveball that paints the lower corner of the zone. The hum remains, opening up into chaos only when the barrier between the focus in a pitcher’s head and the surrounding atmosphere breaks.

For each of Trevor Williams’ 83 career starts in four big-league years, the hum was there. It was there for Clay Holmes, too, inviting him in when he stepped on the mound in relief.

But that was before the world was enveloped in a pandemic, and now the piped-in crowd noise erupting from the speakers doesn’t hum quite the same as a stadium full of heartbeats.

“It doesn’t sound like a stadium 30 to 40 thousand people full, but it sounds like a loud restaurant,” Williams said. “Like, maybe there’s 500 people in a room making crowd noise.”

Since March 12 when the entire sports world fell apart with the positive COVID-19 test of Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert, the 2020 Major League Baseball season has looked a lot different. Spring training games were immediately put on hold, and in the next few days the hope that it would only be a two-week delay diminished. Players were sent home, and questions of if there would even be a season outweighed the questions of when.

Now, with a 60-game schedule in place and underway, the changes to this season are glaring. Matchups are based solely on regional travel, COVID-19 protocols are in place, constant testing has been implemented for players and staff, the National League features a designated hitter, extra innings begin with a runner on second base, and most notably, the stands are empty.

Sure, some teams have placed cardboard cutouts of individual fans in the seats. Fox Sports is even playing with adding virtual fans into the stands during broadcasts. Each stadium will be playing crowd noise over the speakers to avoid certain words picked up by microphones. But the absence is eerie.

The last time Williams pitched in front of fans was March 9, just three days before spring training operations were suspended due to the novel coronavirus. He tossed three, two-hit innings – his first scoreless outing of the year – and was set to bounce back from an injury-riddled 2019.

In 2018, Williams went 14-10 with a 3.11 ERA, the lowest of his career and among Pirates starters that season. He ended the campaign with a flourish, going 8-3 with a 1.29 ERA over his final 13 outings. He started the 2019 season where he left off, collecting a 3.33 ERA in his first nine starts.

Then, on May 16, Williams left his start early with a right-side strain, and the pitcher that returned to Pittsburgh on June 19 after a month on the injured list and a rehab start in Indy wasn’t the same. He finished the season with a 6.58 ERA in his last 17 games, five of which he gave up six-or-more earned runs.

For pitchers across the country, that’s exactly what they were trying to avoid in the three months and 19 days between spring training’s shutdown on March 12 and summer camp’s report date on July 1. With just two weeks to go until what was set to be Opening Day, Williams was ramping up toward the end goal. So, when things ended, things had to ramp back down again.

“There was no way I was able to pitch five to six innings every five days,” Williams said. “If I was still doing that and we didn’t know when we were going to start, there was potential that I would be almost 70 or 80 innings into a season before it actually started. We toned it back a little bit but prepared ourselves for our initial start date of Memorial Day, then the Fourth of July, and now the 24th.”

For Pirates reliever Clay Holmes, it was the opposite. Instead of working to pace himself and avoid injury, he was working to rebound from a broken foot suffered on Feb. 29, less than two weeks shy of when camp was shut down.

After making his big-league debut in 2018, Holmes spent the majority of 2019 with the Pirates. He tossed 50.0 innings in 35 appearances, and while his ERA sat at 5.58 when all was said and done, it was a step in the right direction for the then-26-year-old right-hander.

Fast forward to late-February 2020, and Holmes showed his growth in a pair of short relief appearances. He surrendered just one baserunner on a hit batter in his first two innings of work and was feeling confident going into March.

At CenturyLink Sports Complex in Fort Myers, Fla., with the Pirates holding a one-run lead against the Minnesota Twins, Holmes entered the game for the sixth inning. Facing his first batter of the day, a comebacker off the bat of Nelson Cruz struck Holmes and broke his fibula, sidelining him for the rest of spring and presumably the beginning of the regular season.

Then, 12 days later, Holmes’ mindset on his injury changed.

“I think there for a little bit, [spring training being shut down] kind of took my mind off my leg and I was trying to figure things out like everybody else was,” Holmes said. “But I guess the most important thing and the silver lining in all that for me was it gave me a lot of extra time. It was one of those things where I didn’t feel like I had to rush back.

“There were already some things I was trying to work on with my delivery, with my feet and especially my back foot, so it gave me the opportunity to start from the ground up.”

Holmes remained in Florida with the training staff to help rehab his injury and continue working to hone his craft. He tossed from his knees when he was unable to put pressure on his leg and progressed up to facing live batters in May.

“I was very fortunate,” Holmes said. “Having [coaches and trainers] around definitely helped keep the rehab process moving along, so I didn’t have to face any stalls or get behind on schedule.”

He made his official return to game action on July 22 as the Pirates took on Cleveland in an exhibition game and tossed one scoreless inning in relief. He picked up right where he left off in the spring, although the atmosphere looked a whole lot different.

To really understand the effect of crowd noise, there may be no better example in baseball than one centered around another former Indianapolis Indians hurler. One whose nickname, ‘Big Unit,” holds all the introduction in the world.

In 1995, the Seattle Mariners had been around for 18 pennant-less years. After ending the season with a record that nearly tied the New York Yankees, Seattle ended up facing the Pinstripes in the American League Division Series.

In front of a near-capacity crowd at the Kingdome in Seattle, the Mariners tied up the game at four apiece on a Ken Griffey Jr. home run and a bases-loaded walk in the eighth inning. A quick double and a walk in the top of the ninth inning gave the Yankees the go-ahead run in scoring position with three outs still in their pockets.

Enter Randy Johnson. He replaced Norm Charlton on the mound and finished the inning unscathed on a strikeout and two pop-ups. The future Hall of Famer went on to pitch three innings in relief and gave up one run on one hit in the top of the 11th. And, well, the bottom half of that inning is infamous.

In a 2019 MLB Network documentary titled The 1995 Mariners, Saving Baseball in Seattle, Johnson recalled the do-or-die moment.

“I drew from the fans,” he said in the documentary. “There’s nothing greater than when you feel like you can’t do something, and you’ve got 50,000 people screaming. All of the sudden your mind is made up: ‘I can do this.’”

The sound all depends on the acoustics of the stadium, and some are louder than others. Fenway Park is widely regarded as one of, if not the loudest. Williams says Dodger Stadium is at the top of his list. In 2011, the crowd noise in Globe Life Park – which has now been traded in by the Rangers for Globe Life Field – caused bullpen confusion for the Cardinals in Game 5 of the World Series.

“Sitting in the dugout or the bullpen and hearing the roar of the crowd, it’s fun,” Holmes said. “That’s what makes the game so special, especially for us players.”

The ramp back up toward Major League Baseball’s Opening Day of July 23 – the Pirates opened up on July 24 in St. Louis, and Williams made his first start of the season on the 25th – went seamless, from the 28-year-old starter’s perspective.

It’s no secret that players had to get creative to get their work in. Williams was fortunate to live in an area with teammates around him to work out with, and Holmes’ situation in Florida helped him greatly in the long run. From the pitching staff to those filling the eight positions around them, the team as a whole picked up right where it left off on March 12.

“I think all the guys really spent the time at home to get better,” Williams said. “They had 10 weeks at home to hone their craft, if it was something specific on the hitting side or fielding side or pitching side, I think everyone did what they could to come to the park ready to go.”

Intrasquad matchups and exhibition games with a team’s closest opponent – Pittsburgh played Cleveland, the Cubs traveled to the south side of Chicago, the Dodgers faced their Anaheim counterparts, etc. – gave players a chance to get full games in against a different club for the first time since March.

“It was good to finally play a team with a different colored jersey,” Williams said. “The competitiveness just turns on a little more when you’re facing a different team.”

Those games also gave players a chance to hear crowd noise through the speakers in a different stadium than their own, something that will vary from ballpark to ballpark.

Major League Baseball made artificial crowd noise mandatory for all games and even supplied audio for teams to use from MLB The Show. The key to creating somewhat of a normal atmosphere comes multiple decks up in the control room, where operators must time crowd reactions to the on-field action.

“There’s like 50 different reactions that you can have,” Williams said. “So, if there’s a good operator that knows what they’re doing it’s great, but if not then you can tell it’s fake.”

There are different instances where the crowds will definitely be missed, too; corner infielders tumbling into the stands for a pop-up, home runs into the outfield bleachers, moments where the intensity builds to a release from the crowd on that final strike or walk-off hit.

“[The artificial crowd noise] can’t exactly replace the emotion and noise from the fans,” Holmes said.

Now, with the season underway, the goal is to keep it going through the recently outlined 16-team extended playoff format.

There are no fans in the stands, at least for now, but what matters to the players is keeping themselves, and their teammates, safe.

“I would say that was one of the biggest question marks and challenges for players to come back, is that we all wanted to come back and play but the ‘how it’s going to work,’” Holmes said. “I think that specifically our staff and MLB has done a great job of putting protocols in place and being prepared.

“Ultimately, I think it comes down to, especially as teammates, kind of taking care of each other and making sure that we’re being as safe as possible and not putting the clubhouse at risk. I think everybody has that responsible mindset that we’re in this together.”