Phillies reveal interactive, socially distanced 2020 plans

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Phillies reveal interactive, socially distanced plans for 2020 season

The Philadelphia Phillies are doing their best to make the most out of the unprecedented 60-game season, scheduled to get underway in less than two weeks.

On Monday, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Breen confirmed several ways the Phillies will handle their 30 home games.

There will be crowd noise pumped in, cardboard cutouts, Even the Phillies’ beloved public address announcer Dan Baker and Phillie Phanatic mascot will be in attendance at Citizens Bank Park.

Phillies EVP David Buck told Breen: “We’re trying to make it as normal as possible.”

Pumped-in Crowd Noise

The Phillies will pump in crowd noise through their PA system, which will audible on NBC Sports Philadelphia television broadcasts. According to Breen, the noise will come from Sony’s popular MLB The Show video game franchise.

We could get our first listen of the pumped-in crowd noise as early as this Sunday when the NBC Sports Philadelphia will likely broadcast the team’s lone home exhibition contest against the Baltimore Orioles at 6:05 p.m.

Buck told Breen that having a silent stadium otherwise would be a “competitive issue.”

“You don’t want it so quiet in there. Say a catcher is moving inside or outside, you don’t want the batter to be able to hear that,” he said. “You don’t want the batter to hear the shortstop yell to the second baseman, ‘Move over to your left.’”

“You do need some ambient noise in there. You don’t want to blare it out and be ridiculous, but you do need to be fair.”

Dan Baker

Longtime Phillies public address announcer Dan Baker will, in fact, be working in his 49th season with the team, according to Breen.

As usual, Baker will announce each batter. Walk-up music will be played for each Phillies batter, too.

Similar to the pumped in crowd noise, Baker and the walk-up music are likely also to be heard on television broadcasts.

Cardboard cutouts … for now

As previously rumored, the Phillies will soon invite fans to upload their picture, which would then be turned into a cardboard cutout and placed in one of the seats at Citizens Bank Park.

Several other teams are doing the same and are finding their own ways to be creative in the process. For example, the Oakland A’s will send fans a baseball souvenir if a foul ball hits their cardboard cutout at RingCentral Coliseum.

The Phillies reportedly have something their sleeve as well, as Buck told Breen they have “something cool planned for the first three games.”

Collected proceeds are benefiting COVID-19 relief funds. However, Buck told Breen that the Phillies hope the cutouts will not be a permanent fixture, as they are hopeful fans can return later in the season.

Buck told Breen:

“It’s really hard. MLB wants us to put on a show but they don’t want us to go crazy. There’s not any money coming in so you can’t have 20 people in there running a great show for no fans. Here’s the other thing, we start next Friday, August 1 it could be much different and then August 15. We’re just going to build on it. At some point, we’d like to have fans and then you’re a lot closer to normal than you’re starting with.”

Phanavision

A part of what makes Citizens Bank Park great is its state-of-the-art, 76-foot-high, 97-foot-wide Phanavision. The Phillies are working hard to bring it to the homes of fans this season.

According to Breen, the team is planning to allow fans at home to see the scoreboard as a “second screen” through the team’s app and/or website.

Breen also speculated the Phillies could mirror Major League Soccer using scoreboards to display fan reactions. How cool would it be, in between innings, if fans could “go live” from their home?

Due to MLB’s 2020 operations manual, the Phillies were forced to cut down on their Phanavision staff from its usual 18 or 19 people to just six or seven.

The Phillie Phanatic

Phillie Phanatic (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /

Human fans won’t be allowed inside Citizens Bank Park, but perhaps the Phillies’ biggest fan, overall, the Phillie Phantic, will still be in attendance.

What will the beloved mascot do without any fellow fans to entertain? Buck told Breen that the Phanatic will not be really sure what to do, but, by the third game, “he’s going to have three really cool plans.”

“He may get a lot of TV time. He’ll be running around Ashburn Alley even though it’s going to be closed,” Buck added. “He’ll be doing stuff like that.”

We will not be seeing the Phanatic taunt opposing players on the ATV, nor on the dugout, however, due to social distancing guidelines. Time will tell just what he does.

Opening Day

The Philadelphia Phillies march into the stadium (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images) /

Much of the pomp and circumstance of the usual March or April home opener will be different in 2020. Players, coaches and the starting lineup will be introduced, but likely not side-by-side on the first and third baselines due to not six-feet distance recommendations.

And, the anthem will be played via a prerecorded video, rather than live.

So, when Opening Day on July 24 rolls around, clearly, Phillies fans will have to adjust to many new of the aforementioned things. Ranging from cardboard cutouts, to pumped-in crowd noise, it surely will be a season to remember once the pandemic is all said and done. Hopefully, most of the players will be able to remain healthy, and those who do not, recover with speed.

If all 60 games and the subsequent postseason are able to be played, who knows, maybe 2020 is the season the Phillies will come away with their third World Series championship.

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