Kyle Schwarber, Chicago Cubs. (Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images)
Those virtual fans should have known Kyle Schwarber was thinking home run.
Why do virtual fans get to have all the fun watching Kyle Schwarber go yard?
Well, we are in the middle of a global pandemic. Even though the MLB is back in our lives, you can’t go to the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field to take in a ballgame, not even if the hated Milwaukee Brewers are in town to square off with the Chicago Cubs. Saturday was a perfect day for baseball, but only FOX’s virtual fans were allowed to be in attendance. It’s such a weird look on television.
Schwarber obliterated Brewers right-hander Brent Suter‘s offering on the bottom of the fifth inning. With second baseman Javier Baez on base, the two-run bomb cut into the Cubs’ deficit, trailing only 4-3 after that towering blast. It was such a magnificent home run that it seemed to confuse the entire virtual Wrigley faithful in attendance. Have they forgot what homers look like?
Virtual fans on nationally televised games on FOX will never become normal.
When we look back on this season and see those virtual fans who were sitting in our seats not knowing how to celebrate a Schwarber home run, we will critique the available technology like we do with older versions of The Sims. Why wasn’t every seat in the outfield bleachers packed to the brim? I mean, it was close, but it’s a summer day in Chicago and the Cubbies are playing baseball!
While we appreciate FOX’s innovativeness, the ball landing into a sea of nothing is easier on the eyes. Having the cutouts behind the backstop are cute until it rains. Then, we’ll feel sorry for the guy who works at Wrigley Field or any other ballpark who has to pick up soaking wet cardboard in the rain. It’s the baseball pandemic equivalent of cleaning up after the elephants in the circus.
The Cubs and the rest of us are in this together, a crazy 60-game season where more than half of the league makes the postseason. Fans can only watch on television or from adjacent rooftops. All we know is on national telecasts on FOX, we’re going to get weird and confused virtual fans who don’t know how to celebrate homers who simultaneously confuse us all in the process.
I’d rather see the ball bounce off the bleachers and make its way towards Waveland and Sheffield.