Red Sox: Ron Roenicke gives thoughts on artificial noise, “I liked it a lot”
Red Sox bring the noise back to Fenway Park
For the second day in a row, the Red Sox held an intrasquad game to prepare for the upcoming season, but today felt a little bit different. During the game today, Boston experimented with the use of artificial crowd noise to bring life back to Fenway Park. As we inch closer and closer to Opening Day, more and more teams will begin working on their routines as far as pumped in noise goes.
I won’t speak for anyone else, but it was a breath of fresh air to hear something other than silence at Fenway. It was especially nice today to have a crowd roaring as J.D. Martinez smacked a bomb to the Monster and rounded the bases. Obviously nothing will replace actual fans at Fenway but this was a fun step in a somewhat normal direction.
After today’s game, Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke was asked about his thoughts on the artificial crowd noise and the veteran skipper seemed all for it.
"“I liked it a lot… some real noise that will get better with the timing of it,” Roenicke said. “I think even the noise with nothing going on is really good. They’re experimenting with the loudness of it, what sounds like the natural crowd.”"
It may not seem like something big in the grand scheme of what’s going on, but for the baseball world, it could be exactly what we need. If you watched the game today you undoubtedly heard the sounds varying in volume and ferocity as the team was working on finding the sweet spot. Ahead of the 2020 season, teams were given the approval to pipe in crowd noise in order to give the resemblance of a normal game.
Unlike in other sports where piped-in crowd noise could be seen as a huge advantage, it’s something Roenicke believes can help both teams. I know it sounds childish, but it just wouldn’t be fair to have the crowd noise fully in one direction or the other.
Even in real-life scenarios, ballparks are never 100% for one team over the away side. So Roenicke wants to make sure that Fenway has a level of noise that will allow both sides to thrive and make the most of whatever the hell this season is going to be.
"“There has to be some kind of noise for the visiting side,” Roenicke said. “When things go bad on our side… really, what happens is that the crowd makes a noise whether it’s good or bad. Trying to make sure that we’re not doing anything that’s so one-sided it’s ridiculous.”"
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Roenicke would go on to say that he believes that the league will have some oversight on the process to make sure things stay on the up and up. Again, in a realistic world, it’s not going to be all for one team or the other but it should definitely give both sides some positivity. If we had to go through this season in pure silence, it would be absolutely miserable.
If the league is actually going to monitor things, hopefully, better than they did the replay rooms, then I don’t think we have much to worry about in relation to one-sided noise. Again, I know it sounds silly to be talking about such a thing, but think about it. When the Red Sox head to Yankee Stadium, it’d be pretty low if they do nothing but play boos when Boston is batting. But then again, it’s the Yankees, so I wouldn’t put it past them.
"“Everybody has got the opportunity to change those noises and get it to a place where they think it’s going to help their team.”"
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This is going to be a tough road for the Red Sox if they want to make it to the postseason. The starting rotation is in shambles with no clear path in-sight, which will lead to numerous issues. One thing that Boston won’t need to worry about is their offense. J.D. smacking that dinger today was a sign that he’s in midseason form. Add into that Andrew Benintendi hitting the ball with confidence, and I have zero doubts about the Sox putting runs on the board.