Orioles play - without fans

With rubble and debris looming nearby, and tempers still smouldering in riot-torn Baltimore, the Orioles played baseball Wednesday – without any fans at Camden Yards.

The game was held behind closed doors, and the Orioles and Chicago White Sox played because it was the best time to fill out the schedule for both teams.

The timing worked for baseball, not so much for Baltimore. It was an unusual move by Major League Baseball, which usually errs on the side of caution in the wake of tragedy.

Games were cancelled after riots ignited in Los Angeles and terrorists attacked New York and Washington. Baseball put off the World Series in 1989 after an earthquake hit San Francisco.

In Baltimore, after drug stores were set on fire and the National Guard had to be called in to restore order, they played a game because this was Chicago's only planned visit to the city. The postponed games on Monday and Tuesday were to be made up as part of a doubleheader on May 28, but there was seemingly nowhere to go on the schedule with Wednesday's game.

So they moved up the starting time by five hours to 2:05 p.m. to beat the 10 o'clock curfew and had the teams go at it before 47,000 empty seats.

"We have a schedule, so we've got to get games in," Chicago second baseman Gordon Beckham said. "We can't just miss all three games and expect to make them up down the line. I mean we'll have no off days for the rest of the year. So, we at least have to get this one in."

Just about everyone who put on a uniform understood the circumstances.

"It makes you realize how unimportant really in a lot of ways this is compared to some things that are going on," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "You try to keep that mind and look at things realistically, where this fits in the scheme of things. You prioritize what's important and we tried to do that."

Their intentions may have been in the right place, but seemingly not much else.

Playing the game without any fans in attendance was both a good and a bad thing. The team didn't divert any police from doing their job around the city, but the people of Baltimore didn't get a chance to turn the page by watching the home team play at Camden Yards.

"Sports brings people together — black, white, or any different," Orioles centre fielder Adam Jones said. "For those three hours, you can have beers, nachos and some Boog's (barbecue) and forget about our daily lives.

"But today, we're just going to have to play a Major League Baseball game without fans. I think that's first time in history."