MLB: Live on tape, the crack of the bat

Instead of allowing fans to hear what happens during the game, MLB is providing teams with a stadium soundtrack from MLB: The Show 20 to play during games.

In the first seasons of the celebrated CBS program “M*A*S*H,” despite complaints from the show creators, network decisionmakers felt that it was appropriate to have a laugh track added to the brilliant dark comedy. The recorded guffaws infuriated critics and TV audiences so much that they were later toned down and then completely abandoned. The celebrated series, which was nominated for more than 100 Emmy awards, provided plenty of unprompted viewer responses.

What does that have to do with the upcoming 2020 baseball season?

MLB is expected to formally announce that they will provide home teams with a stadium soundtrack, taken from the video game “MLB: The Show 20.” The sounds of the game will soon be embellished like a slugger’s biceps in the “Steroid Era.”

It is not enough for MLB to allow teams to add cutouts of fans in seats. On June 29, the Oakland A’s introduced the “Coliseum Cutouts” program, allowing fans to pay $89 to have an 18′ X 30′ image placed in a designated seat. The A’s proclaimed that they had sold 1,000 “season tickets” on the first day.

Other teams followed suit, in varying degrees. The Los Angeles Dodgers will add seat cutouts ranging from $149 to $299. No word if they will be removed by the end of the seventh inning.

To replicate the game day experience, the New York Yankees have yet to announce that they will use images of the Invisible Man for the luxury seats directly behind home plate.

The Tampa Bay Rays will just keep the seats empty to replicate an actual home game.

A stationary cardboard image may appear appropriate when Baltimore is being blown-out at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, but seems out of place in Atlanta. Good thing that the Braves are considering doing away with the “tomahawk chop” chant. Adding a spring-loaded coil to a cardboard cutout is expensive.

I can’t wait for the nuances of watching a live baseball game with taped crowd noise. “Programs! Watch the programs!?” “Cold beer now! Go to your cooler and get an ice-cold beer!” “Get your red hots from the kitchen!”

Will the Houston Astros home games have drumming from a plastic bucket in the background when they are at-bat?

And I really look forward to listening to that venerable Wrigley Field tradition. “Cubs fans! Let me hear you! And a one, and a two … Take me out to my La-Z-Boy. Take me out to the corrugate crowd …” Harry Carey must be rolling in his grave.