Noise in stadiums being examined in NFL---Why not MLB?

Could injuries like Nick Johnson's fractured leg today be reduced if players could hear each other better on the field? Please don't tell me you can't do anything about it. The NFL is. From the NY Times, 9/24/06:

"For NFL, Crowd Noise is Becoming a Headache," by John Branch

"Today at Qwest Field, an outdoor stadium with a roof that covers 70 percent of the 67,000 seats, league officials will be looking, and listening, for violations of the noise rules. Some have voiced concerns that the Seahawks and other teams pipe in artificial sounds to bolster the well-timed cheers of fans, which Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren has denied.

A recent analysis by The New York Times showed that penalties, particularly noise-related penalties like offensive holding and false starts, have been on the rise in recent years.

It found that more penalties, especially those for false starts, are called in domed stadiums, which tend to be louder."

• Extrapolate this to baseball, Johnny Damon might not've been taken out of Fenway on a stretcher a few years ago. There are also less life-threatening errors caused by players who cannot hear another player calling them off.

"Teams also receive detailed and restrictive instructions from the league about ways to elicit reactions from their fans. Under the guidelines, some electronic messages "“Let'’s go crazy"and "Pump it up" are among those listed are not acceptable.

Other chants ("“De-fense!"”) are appropriate, at certain times. Encouraging the wave is not ever.

But N.F.L. fans cannot help themselves. So they keep cheering, often disrupting the communications and hard-thought intentions of the visiting offense and becoming, in effect, what Seattle fans and others call the 12th man. Once the opponents are rattled, the crowd cheers even louder.

Fans may think that is good. Other leagues may think it is super. The N.F.L. is not so sure.

With no reasonable way to curb enthusiasm without appearing stodgy, Roger Goodell, the new N.F.L. commissioner, is floating another idea: placing microphones in quarterbacks'’ helmets and speakers in the helmets of other offensive players, so that play calls and snap counts can be heard despite the din.

• Quarterbacks now have earpieces that allow them to hear coaches, but the transmission is cut with 15 seconds left on the play clock."

The article states the NFL adopted a noise penalty in 1989, BUT IT HAS NEVER BEEN ENFORCED: "It adopted a noise penalty in 1989, allowing the referee, at the quarterback's request, to warn the home team that the crowd is being disruptive. The referee, who stands behind the quarterback at the snap, can dock the home team a timeout, or even call a 5-yard penalty, if he decides that linemen cannot hear the snap count.

Mike Pereira, the N.F.L.'’s vice president for officiating, has been in the league office for nine years. He said the rule had not been enforced in that time."

• Nice.

“That'’s part of the battle of having home-field advantage, having a loud crowd, doing those kinds of things so the other team is not able to hear the count, not be able to hear those things, guard David Diehl said."

• So, the team, the player, his family, all the people whose livelihoods are connected to the game, and the fans, can all go to hell.

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon