NY Times · May 15, 2022
The Loneliest Team in Baseball
Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesOAKLAND — One quiet night earlier this month, fewer than 3,000 fans went to an Oakland Athletics game. It was so vacant and tranquil at the bulky, old coliseum, that the visiting Tampa Bay Rays players could hear the crisp enunciation of every taunt flung their way.
Brett Phillips, a Rays outfielder, said one of his teammates told him that when he was at bat, he clearly heard a fan in the grandstands mocking his paltry batting average. Phillips missed that barb, but he was asked what he did hear from the barren stands that night.
“I heard a pin drop,” Phillips quipped. “Does that count?”