As Pirates play ball at PNC, no fans doesn't mean no fanfare

The Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the first major sporting event in Pittsburgh since March 10 — a 129-day stretch — but there were no fans for their exhibition game against Cleveland on Saturday night at PNC Park.

There were, however, plenty of cheers.

The Pirates have been playing training camp intrasquad games in an otherwise empty ballpark filled with automated crowd noise that manager Derek Shelton called “standard throughout the league.”

The crowd noise is played on a continuous loop, so the Pirates discovered it’s impossible to simulate the sounds of a pumped-up crowd cheering on the home team.

“I realized, listening to it for the first time, that you can’t really tell if it’s a home crowd or not. I’m not sure who they’re rooting for,” general manager Ben Cherington said, with a laugh. “Everything about this is unprecedented, so you guys can tell us what you make of it.”

The feedback from Pirates players during training camp has been split, as they expect a difference between their intrasquad scrimmages and the exhibition and regular-season games against MLB opponents. Pirates pitcher Joe Musgrove, who started against Cleveland on Saturday night and will pitch on Opening Day at St. Louis, finds the automated crowd noise to be “a little bit annoying.”

“I’d rather it just be silent, to be honest,” Musgrove said. “The sound, it’s constantly the same exact — um, I don’t even know the word to use here — the same tone. It never changes. It’s not like a true crowd noise where, moments in the game, after strikes, it gets loud then comes back down, in big moments it gets loud. It’s just kind of a constant white-noise kind of sound.”

Hello beautiful. pic.twitter.com/Ggkm5P2uv5

— Pirates (@Pirates) July 18, 2020

That wasn’t the case when Musgrove was pitching against Cleveland on Saturday night. Even if it didn’t look like a baseball crowd, with thousands of empty seats, the Pirates tried to make it sound like one. There was a recording of Vince Lascheid playing the organ, applause and the sound of cannons firing after Musgrove fanned Carlos Santana for his third strikeout of the first inning. Walk-up music was played for Pirates hitters, with automated cheers when they were introduced by the public address announcer.

“You don’t have the loud noise, and it’s not true, authentic fan noise that you hear,” Musgrove said. “It’s run through speakers, so that’s a little bit strange. As far as my ability to focus on the task on hand, I was about the same.”

The timing of the automated cheers, however, can be tricky. They went off both before and after Bryan Reynolds singled to right field in his first at-bat.

The automated crowd noise is especially noticeable to catchers, who are in the middle of the chatter between the umpires and batters or umpires and coaches. Pirates catcher Luke Maile compared the sound of the automated crowd noise to a truck rolling through the infield, especially when he lines up to the inside.

“You’re not really invisible anymore as a catcher, so I’m trying to get set later (with) targets a lot more often than I otherwise would,” Maile said, “because whether it’s right or it’s wrong, you feel kind of naked out there without having that white noise in the background.”

What bothered Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings was how uncomfortable he felt playing in silence, before the crowd noise was pumped into the stadium. Multiple Pirates players compared it to high school or rookie-ball games, when the only people in attendance were scouts.

“I don’t really want to hear the other teams’ conversations from their dugout,” Stallings said, “and I don’t want them hearing ours.”

That’s a concern for Shelton, who has found that everything said in one dugout can be heard in the other. He expects the automated crowd noise to drown out the chatter and protect managers while discussing strategy. Relief pitcher Kyle Crick suggested it’s a good idea, to prevent the bickering and trash talk between teams from being broadcast.

“I think we should get a little white noise in there,” Crick said, with a smile, “just to confuse microphones or whatnot.”

This #Pirates clip allows you to hear the differences of the artificial crowd noise loop and the automated cheers at PNC Park, as Phillip Evans hits an RBI triple to right-center off Robbie Erlin to score Josh Bell. pic.twitter.com/ajAWO0hH1s

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) July 18, 2020

If MLB games can’t be played in front of fans, it doesn’t mean they can’t be played without any fanfare. Expect the sounds of the crowd to be audible, even if they are automated and a little bit annoying.

“I would prefer this over silence,” Shelton said. “There’s certain conversations that happen on the field that should not be heard, in my opinion. You don’t want every conversation between the hitter and the umpire, between the catcher and the umpire and the manager and the umpire — some of those things should have some privacy to them so having a little bit of noise is a good idea.”

Shelton has sat in the stands to get a gauge on the crowd noise, roaming around the infield and outfield to talk with players about the volume. He’s found it’s louder in the stands than it is on the field, and the automated crowd noise loop has adjusted to allow for automated cheers when teams get a big hit or score a run.

“I would be really happy if they would throw some beer vendors or some peanut vendors or Cracker Jacks in there. I think that would add it up,” Shelton said. “The one thing I do think, it may get a little stale because it’s on a loop. If we could throw some different vending choices in there, that would be cool. I think it’s going to be fine.”