Cole Tucker and Nick Burdi had already begun their at-bat Tuesday when it finally happened. To this point, the Pirates had played in silence for their intrasquad games, with the only noises being the crack of the bat or the mitt and some occasional banter.
But then it started to get louder. Artificial crowd noise was being pumped in through PNC Park's speakers.
This has been a concern for players and Derek Shelton. Without fans in the stands, games are going to be silent. That could lead to teams eavesdropping on their opponent's conversations from the other dugout, not to mention every word potentially being picked up on television broadcasts.
“I don’t really want to hear the other teams’ conversations from their dugout, and I don’t want them hearing ours,” Jacob Stallings said in a Zoom call last week.
The Pirates had considered adding crowd noise to mask their voices during games, so this could be a sample of what is to come in 2020.
Shelton likes to watch the intrasquad games from the stands to get a different vantage point for the pitchers, and while out there decided to have the noise dialed down a bit.
"It was different," Shelton said about the experience. "I went out in the outfield and had a conversation with [special assistant to baseball operations] David Eckstein and [special assistant to baseball operations] Jamey [Carroll] and then the base coaches and [bench coach] Donnie [Kelly] just about how loud it should be and how loud it was... It was really loud in the stands, in my opinion, so I went out on the field to see, and we were able to adjust it.
"So once we get our guys out there, I think we'll have a better idea of how loud it should be and make sure our communication’s fine."
How loud is loud? Here is where it sounded from the pressbox, which is around section 317 and 318, for Burdi and Tucker's at-bat:
Pirates are playing their intrasquad game with crowd noise for the first time in camp. #DKPS #Pirates pic.twitter.com/wqOwMAVNBt
— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) July 14, 2020
And here it is towards the end of the game:
It was constant, static noise, so it's not like a normal game where there would be cheers and boos and other sounds from the ballpark depending on what's happening. Not that Shelton would be opposed to that.
"I wish they could pipe in some beer vendors or water vendors," Shelton said. "That would be kind of fun."
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