Wednesday will be a dream for baseball fans—eight playoff games stretching from noon on the east coast to well after midnight. Say what you will about MLB’s new expanded playoff format, but it’s pretty amazing that it gives us a March Madness-style day of wall-to-wall action.
And yet, after watching Tuesday’s playoff openers, I find my excitement dampened.
It should go without saying at this point that fake crowd noise is a very unfortunate necessity and the playoffs only make it more obvious. The organic excitement of a playoff environment is a significant part of the viewing experience and something that can’t be replicated.