a pretty eerie sight for some of those orioles fans and the city as a whole. we can see already some people trying to go to the box office to buy tickets, being turned away, and this decision coming under a certain level of criticism because of the visuals that it s going to create. i asked the orioles executive vice president about it earlier today. we want to be sensitive to the needs of the community, we didn t want to divert a lot of the resources for public safety to an event, but under the schedule demands of the american league, this is the only time the white sox are in here, and we already missed a couple of games, and there really is not an opportunity for them to play here. reporter: so there you have it their defense is this decision to play. i will also tell you, craig, we briefly ran into cal ripkin jr., who is of course a sports legend here in baltimore. he didn t want to talk about the riots, but he did say he was
going to potentially attend the game today. he also said he of course has never played to an empty stadium because it s never been done before. and i also should correct something i said a bit earlier in the day here today, ripkin of course, has been the highest number of consecutive starts not the most games played which, of course the legendary pete rose. i m sure the baseball fans took to twitter to correct you on that one. they take that very seriously. really quickly, kasie, was there other alternatives to playing in an empty stadium? nationals ballpark in d.c. is about 40 miles away the nats aren t there right now. why was that not considered? well craig, we heard from some of the orioles officials they discussed it but never actually took it to the nationals franchise to discuss it. they are embroiled in a legal dispute over a television network that they share, so we re speculating when we say that might be part of it. we don t have confirmation on
msnbc s joy reid is on the ground for us in baltimore. joy, you know yesterday we saw the community starting to come together to clean up. some of the protests at times actually seemed a bit jubilant. last night we caught some glimpses amid the small clashes between police and protesters actually some residents protecting the police. our cameras caught some of that. do you get the sense on the ground that this is a relative peace and a relative calm that s going to hold in baltimore today and into the night? well hi good morning, craig. calm, definitely i m glad you used the term relative. you never really get used to being in an american city and seeing police in full body armor and shields and helmets and national guard troops and armored humvees rolling around or parked on the street which is what you have in baltimore right now. we ve come a little bit of a way down the street into west
i m glad you worked that in, not the fact but that boys learn differently. folks i was one of those boys that learned differently. russell, thank you very much as always, sir. david, keep doing the great work that you have been doing over the eagle academy. thank you very much. that s going to do it. i m craig mefl anyonelvin in for tamron hall. mark owns restaurants in the lake tahoe area. realizing the needs, he started a bakery for bread, butcher for meat, plus pasta and pastry. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don t leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it s a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets,
baltimore. you can see it s quiet and people are going about their lives. the barbershop is here the northwest variety store is opening up for business, so people are trying to get back to normal, but there is this sense of ominous overarching presence of law enforcement, particularly when you get to things like down the street where the library is, the city center, so they are still here, and i think that amount of tension is still in the air. occupied city to a certain extent. essentially, yes. that s what it feels like. it definitely feels a bit like a city that s under a kind of quasi military occupation, so while it s calm you can t describe that as normal difficult to describe that as normal, and craig, just talking to people. i had a great conversation with a young man who s a lifelong resident and lives in this area and said look you know when he hears people on the air talking about young thugs and people burning down their