Pandemic World Series draws smallest crowd in over century

Julie and Lance Smith walked through mostly empty concourse of Globe Life Field. Tampa Bay infielder Joey Wendle is married to one of ir cousins, and y weren’t going to miss his World Series debut.

“It’s so weird,” said Julie Smith, 38, from Gsden, Alabama.

“It’s kind of nice in a way, too,” Lance, 39, said before y heed to ir seats in first deck behind home plate.

y wore masks, but many fans igred requirement for facial coverings except while eating or drinking at ir ticketed seats.

A crowd of about 11,000 was expected for Tuesday night’s World Series opener between Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, spre in groups of up to four, mostly in alternate rows and ne directly behind each or among forest green seats, That would be smallest for a World Series game in about 111 years.

Major League Baseball planned to make about 11,500 tickets available for each game, about 28% of 40,518 capacity at retractable-roof stium of Texas Rangers. new $1.2 billion venue opened this year and replaced Globe Life Park, team’s open-air home from 1994 through 2019. During batting practice, through new stium’s glass walls, sun glistened off red brick of old stium across street beyond left field, a field w used for high school football.

Behind home plate, Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stium gleamed like a ship.

World Series games are usually festive, packed early with fans celebrating dual accomplishments of ir team making it to baseball’s ultimate st and of ir snagging hard-to-find tickets, usually displayed in plastic hanging from lanyard draped around ir necks.

But this World Series h a surreal, at times somber aspect caused by vel coronavirus pandemic. small crowd was supplemented with fan audio from stium speakers.

fans were allowed to any of 898 regular-season games this season, which were played in empty ballparks due to governmental health restrictions.

Players' families were allowed starting for 18 first-round games, 15 Division Series games and AL Championship Series between Tampa Bay and Houston in San Diego, with fans ded for Dodgers’ matchup against Atlanta in NL Championship Series in Arlington, an aver of 10,835 for seven games. Roughly same amount of tickets were sold for each World Series game.

Behind third base, a group of fans in Dodgers gear watched after flying in.

Brian Casey, a 29-year-old from Glendale, California, booked a plane ticket ahe of Sunday night’s win over Braves, kwing he h 24 hours to cancel without penalty, n me a decision after Dodgers rallied for a 4-3 win. He was in attendance when y last won World Series in 1988 as a kid and was at Dodger Stium when y played Boston in 2018. He watched Tuesday with Ryan Renbaugh, 37, from Burbank.

“We just went to buy souvenirs and it was all Rangers stuff,” Renbaugh said.

ah Garden, MLB’s chief revenue officer, said pandemic me it difficult to get gear shipped in short time after teams won pennants last weekend.

MLB me decision to play with roof open. It was closed until Dodgers started to warm up about 3 1/2 hours ahe of first pitch, n slid open as public dress system played Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarasuthra,” kwn to many as opening music from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Odyssey.”

usual pregame introductions of teams were dispensed with. When a cappella group Pentatonix sang a recorded version of “ Star-Spangled Banner” played on 58x150-foot video board in right field and 40-x111-foot board in left-field corner, about 18 Dodgers were in front of first base dugout and on right field line, and roughly a dozen Rays were by third base dugout and on left-field line.

A live flyover of four jets followed, and ceremonial first pitches were thrown by medical personnel who assisted during pandemic: Brittney Burns, a nurse practitioner from San Antonio; Erika Combs, an oncology and kidney transplant nurse at a Dallas hospital; and Jamie Edens and Ryan Ward, nurses from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who are a married couple.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who was on hand, yelled “Play Ball!” into a microphone and retired Dodgers anuncer Vin Scully delivered by video recording: “It’s time for Dodger baseball!” just before Clayton Kershaw walked to mound.

Im credits: AP