This afternoon’s scheduled weirdness in Baltimore is a first-ever in major-league history. Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty

Security is the given reason for this afternoon’s scheduled weirdness in Baltimore, where the Orioles played the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards, but without any fans in attendance. This is a first-ever in major-league history—one can imagine some nineteen-thirties low-level minor-league game in the Ozarks, where the ticket booths were open but no one happened by on that particular afternoon—and also a clearly missed opportunity for a struggling sci-fi screenwriter, whose attendant normal turnout of 18,462 could have been abruptly and silently transported to SpaceKlon 7 with two outs in the bottom of the third.

But what was it like there today, really? With no ushers and no venders? With no instant replay visible in the overhead fan TV sets? Were the sounds of conversation between players in the dugouts audible to a pigeon pausing somewhere along the silent, empty rows of seats in Section 280?

None of this matters much, to be sure, except as an unexpected reminder of the massive and relentless add-ons and distractions of modern-day ball. The Kiss Camera, the racing mascots, the T-shirt cannonades, the God Bless, the deafening rock, the home-team anthem, the infield sweepers’ dance, the well-plaqued Hall of Heroes, the retired numbers, the gymnasium-sized souvenir shops, the Texas steak restaurant in right (with its roped-off waiting areas thoughtfully supplied with overhead screens), the pizzeria in left, the bleacher kiddie pool, and so on. Fans love this and eat it up, but today’s silent anomaly in Baltimore is a mirror reminder that what’s been taken away from the pastime isn’t the crowd but the game: what we came for and what we partake of now in passing fractions, often seen in a held-up smartphone.

Some among us (I am one of them) can recall a time when the baseball and the players were the lone attractions, barring a few outfield signboards. Nothing more, not even an organist. You watched and waited in semi-silence, ate a hot dog, drank a Moxie, watched some more, yelled when something happened, kept score, saw the shadows lengthen, then trooped home elated or disconsolate. It was a public event, modestly presented, and private in recollection. If the game was a big one, with enormous Sunday crowds and endless roaring, it was thrilling to have been there, but in some fashion you’d also been there alone, nobody else in sight.