Tom Hanks, Coliseum public address announcer?
That might be one possibility - via recording, of course - as the A’s experiment with all kinds of sounds to fill their empty stadium during the coronavirus pandemic this season. They’re trying fun ways to incorporate their fans, players, coaches and even vendors… such as Hanks, who sold peanuts and soda in the stands in the 1970s.
With PA man Dick Callahan out for the 60-game season for health reasons, team president Dave Kaval told The Chronicle, “We could have Dick record some stuff so he’s still kind of there with us. We could get some celebrities to record some things, get Tom Hanks to record a Matt Chapman announcement. I’ve already heard from a number of people and we’re going to try a lot of different things.”
During Wednesday evening’s nine-inning simulated game, the team began testing various crowd-noise possibilities, including piping in soundtracks from previous games — background chatter, cheering (“We have to have ‘Let’s go, Oakland!’” Kaval said) and, to no one’s surprise, drumming. The A’s won’t forget their right-field crew, whose steady thumping get a big thumbs’ up from Oakland players and a major negative reaction from opposing fans on social media.
“A lot of visiting players dislike it - it really gets to them - and a lot of home guys love it,” longtime drummer Bryanne Aler-Ningas, 31, of Pittsburg. “ I think we make a difference. You can close your eyes and you can tell where you’re at.”
“I know Khris Davis has said he knows his beat, he recognizes everyone has their own individual beat and he uses it to center himself at the plate,” said drummer Nina Thorsen, 63, of Alameda. “I take a perverse pleasure in going through Twitter and finding opposing fans who hate the drums and who say, “I wish the guy with the drum would stop it,’ because half of us are women and it’s always four to six drums.”
The A’s are even kicking around having the drummers contribute in real time from another spot if it’s workable, Kaval said.
“We would love to be part of it if we could,” Thorsen said. “If we can’t be there, we’d like to do it live in the parking lot or at some remote location. If not, we’d be happy to do whatever we can to recreate the game-time experience.”
“We’d rather be in there but under the circumstances, we’ll take what we can get,” Aler-Ningas said. “If they need us in there, give me a credential and a COVID test and I’d do it in a second.”
Another possibility for in-game sound includes music. Just music. Not between-innings style pop tunes, but music during actual play, which the A’s have been doing during their simulated games, creating a distinctive Club Coli atmosphere that infielder Tony Kemp said he’d like to see stick during the season.
“There’s a part of me that feels like crowd noise can almost feel like white noise to a certain extent,” Kemp said. “But the music that we’ve been playing has actually been fun.”
“We’ve had Club Coliseum going, so we’re looking at: Could you actually have music during the game with no fans there? That’s something we’re going to explore,” Kaval said. “You could even have certain fans’ or players’ playlists, kind of like back in the day when you used to make mix tapes, a fun way to feel you’re present.
“And it’s something bubbling up from the players, so we want to be supportive of that particularly if they feel it will motivate them on the field.”
What might Kara Tsuboi’s role be, with no fans in seats? Kaval said that the A’s in-stadium host and interviewer might still be incorporated somehow - perhaps video calls with fans that could run on the videoboard.
Whatever the A’s decide - and it probably will be a mélange of ideas, because there’s nothing like a 30-game home schedule to allow for experimentation - some sort of background rumble is necessary. While it might be fun to hear what Matt Chapman is saying to Marcus Semien loud and clear, audible bench chatter might not be so great in the heat of competition.
“It’s pretty quiet out there and I think you’ll be able to hear the other bench,” manager Bob Melvin said. “And I’m not sure that’s a good thing, because it can get pretty spirited between benches and there’s restrictions on brawls and so forth. I think tempers have a chance to flare a little bit more if there’s not some sort of crowd noise to mitigate that.”
Kaval is, as he likes to say, on it.
“We obviously don’t want a situation where there isn’t enough ambient sound and it affects games negatively,” he said. “I’ve been watching the MLS games on TV and they’re not piping in crowd noise so you really do hear the players, you hear the goalies yelling, and it feels like a practice. We want this to feel like a big-league game for everyone involved. We’re trying to create the best possible backdrop for 2020.”
Chronicle staff writer Matt Kawahara contributed to this story.
Susan Slusser is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser
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July 16, 2020 at 06:59AM
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Tom Hanks among the options A’s are exploring for in-game sound at Coliseum - San Francisco Chronicle
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