Dodgers: Kiké Hernandez Talks Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Crowd Noise

It seems like most players throughout Major League Baseball have no problem with artificial crowd noise being pumped into stadiums. Dodgers players like Alex Wood have already talked about the awkwardness of silence and that anything is better than that.

Dodgers’ utilityman Kiké Hernandez can be heard on basically every live stream these days, at least when there isn’t crowd noise. He talked about the idea of artificial noise being used, even including some pros and cons to utilizing it. 

Well, I tend to be pretty loud so I don’t like the fact that everyone can hear me when I talk on the field. But I think it’s an advantage when you’re playing defense and you can actually get to get a clear sound of the crack of the bat. Especially when you’re playing outfield to know whether that bats a barreled ball or getting jammed or hitting it off of the end.

On any given night, there could be 50,000 or more fans screaming for all nine innings of a game at Dodger Stadium. To say that players find it difficult to hear the crack of the bat through all of that would be an understatement. Dodgers players being able to hear that could drastically alter the defensive side of the ball, but the opposing team would also have that advantage. 

On the flip side of that, Kiké also doesn’t want everyone to hear him all of the time. During the intrasquad without fake audience noise, you can definitely hear him telling across the diamond at any point in the game, regardless of whether or not he is on the field. Dodgers players know all too well that he likes to keep things loud. 

Whether we like it or not, the generated crowd noise is coming to Dodgers games. And in what likely could be his final season in Los Angeles, it’s a shame that Kiké will have to settle for fake cheers. 

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