Orioles pitcher Alex Cobb gets it. So does Dillon Tate.

Speaking to reporters last night, after the O’s decided not to play in Tampa against the Rays in a sign of unity, if not a stand for social justice, both pitchers shared perspective on the tragic conversations happening today in pro locker rooms, and a lot of other places.

A viral video last weekend showed it again, a white cop shooting, and reportedly paralyzing, a Black man in Wisconsin. Then, horrifically, a few days later, a white teenager shot and killed two people protesting the initial incident.

Cobb, who is white, has an older brother that is a police officer (and an Iraq war veteran). And the 32-year-old Boston native is, of course, teammates with several Black players on the Orioles, like the 26-year-old Tate, who grew up in Los Angeles and trained at the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy in the notoriously violent neighborhood of Compton, California.

Knowing even just that little, it would be easy to paint both (who are likely unfamiliar names to the casual fan) with broad strokes. It’s simple to ask them a leading question, eliciting an answer from the Black, inner-city perspective or white, family-of-police point of view, as if they represented only those groups. But, honestly, that might be precisely a show of the problems at the core of the unrest today. Things, as always, aren’t as black and white as they seem.

“I’m learning to not look at it through those lenses anymore,” said Cobb, who is in his third season with the O’s, following his first two injury-filled years with the team. “In the beginning, you had to be one side of the other. You had to be for our police, or for our inner-city communities, and I just don’t think that was the right way to look at things. I will always respect every single person that puts on a uniform and goes out to protect us. But I also have had too many moments where I looked into my teammates’ eyes or my friends’ eyes and I can see that they’re dealing with some real struggles and they’re hearts are heavy. We need to find a way to start the conversation of mending the two sides, rather than picking a side.”

That’s the message Tate, who arrived in Baltimore in 2018 via the trade of former closer Zach Britton to the New York Yankees, said the Orioles’ 26 players and their coaching staff wanted to send by not playing on Thursday night.

“I think what our team wants people to know on the outside is that we all bleed the same blood,” Tate said. “We are all one and we’re all the same. We’re all just trying to come together right now.”

Sports can be a distraction from real life, but also a platform to make real change. This year, it’s often been both, with games providing entertainment during a pandemic and athletes with microphones and cameras in front of them speaking out on social justice issues more and more.

The NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, who refused to take the court for a playoff game on Wednesday night in Florida in response to what’s happened back in their home state, sparked a new wave of protests and boycotts.

“Enough is enough,” is how the Ravens put it collectively in a detailed statement yesterday, repeating the language the Bucks used when making their announcement earlier this week. The Ravens called for the arrest of the officers involved in the shootings of Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor, and they suggested various reforms on policing and legislation.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh said players held a roughly two-hour meeting on Thursday before the team put out the statement, following a morning of various conversations around the team’s training facility in Owings Mills.

“There were a range of emotions and feelings that have been taking place about what’s been going on in our country,” Harbaugh said during a press conference Friday. “Not everyone is going to agree with every point in that statement. Not everyone on our team is probably going to agree with every aspect… [But] bottom line, let’s come together.”

The dynamic was similar with the Orioles, who have been on the road in Tampa for a series against the Rays. Last night, around 7 p.m., not long after he told his team that he was totally fine with their decision not to play, Orioles second-year manager Brandon Hyde sat down in front of a computer at the Rays’ home stadium to once again speak to the media.

Less than two hours earlier, he told reporters that it was unanimous in a team meeting—the O’s wanted to play last night’s game. But as he was speaking those words, some players were having new conversations out on the field during batting practice.

The group meeting in the clubhouse sparked more intimate talks in the open air of the stadium. Shortly after batting practice was over, the team had a players-only meeting where they spoke as a group again before Hyde—who wore a T-shirt acknowledging the Negro Leagues earlier in the day—entered the room.

“Our guys expressed more of their thoughts on the situation,” Hyde said last night during a Zoom interview, which ended when he got choked up talking about the emotion of the day and how he’s been challenged as a leader this year, “and I think there was a lot of people hurting. You could see in their faces there was a ton of emotion the room.”

Hyde and players declined to share details of what they’ve talked about, but the O’s have many minority players, and Hyde says some of the stories he’s heard this week have been “difficult to listen to.”

“We all have our thoughts in other places at times,” he said about what’s been going on in the country. The social unrest. Yet another report of a racially-charged police shooting.

In sum, a few players felt uncomfortable playing the game last night. And that was enough.

“It’s something that’s evolving each day, what we’re seeing in our communities and now with our athletes,” Cobb said. “I pray that we’re able to find a way for everybody to love everybody.”

Orioles public address announcer Ryan Wagner kept saying what he always has: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome…” We couldn’t blame him, or anyone else, for wanting Opening Day to be the same joyful scene it has always has been for so many different people.

But on Wednesday night at Camden Yards, Wagner’s words fell on no ears.

As Orioles manager Brandon Hyde exited the dugout along the first-base line and players followed behind him around 7:22 p.m., the fans that Wagner was addressing weren’t there. Not in the green seats. Not on Eutaw Street grabbing a pre-game Boog’s BBQ sandwich. Not in a downtown parking garage trying to rush to see the first pitch. Not anywhere, except maybe listening on the radio or watching at home.

Officially, it was the Orioles 2020 home opener against the visiting New York Yankees, but the only thing about this one that resembled any of the past openers was the players on both teams wearing fancy pro uniforms—and maybe that those damn Yankees hit a few home runs early and often.

When the Orioles’ Asher Wojciechowski threw the game’s first pitch, it was hard to know anything significant happened. And when, on the second pitch, the Yankees’ second baseman DJ LeMahieu connected for a home run over the right field scoreboard, from the press box, all that was heard were a few echoes of cheers from the visitor’s dugout.

Later, when a lazy foul ball went into the seats, all I heard was the crack of the baseball against the concrete walkway as it landed. We also heard fake crowd noise after the Orioles scored a run, and saw Major League Baseball staff cleaning baseballs. At one point, I realized, shouldn’t the Oriole Bird be here somewhere?

But only the players from the two teams, the umpires, roughly two dozen reporters like me, a handful of photographers and MASN camera operators, and team staff and security guards were actually there. Maybe a few hundred people in all, each having their temperature taken before entering the stadium and wearing masks if they weren’t on the field playing before an empty stadium on a warm summer night.

“It’s just different,” Wojciechowski said of the environment after the Orioles lost 9-3, via a Zoom video call with reporters. “It’s just weird.”

From what we’ve seen from televised games so far, it might have felt less strange watching at home, with announcers talking over the action, ambient crowd noise, and some teams even placing cardboard cutouts of season-ticket holders behind home plate, a very cool idea.

But there’s a hollowness to being there in person. There’s no such thing as home field advantage. You can hear ambulances driving outside. It’s like a vampire sucked the energy from the place. A lot of players have always thanked the fans for being there, and now you can really see why. “There’s no energy,” Hyde said. “You really have to create the energy in your dugout, at a distance.”

Unfortunately, as we know, the fanless scene had happened here before (and will again this year so long as the Orioles play home games this season). The last time was during the height of the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police five years ago, a moment that was revisited during pregame ceremonies, along with a special tribute to team and fan favorite Mo Gaba, who passed away at age 14 after a lifelong battle with cancer on Tuesday.

Today, the backdrop is different. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown normal life upside down in many ways. Despite that, Major League Baseball and the other major professional sports league are attempting to put on seasons, for entertainment if nothing else. And baseball’s effort—with teams traveling to different cities like everything is normal—has already come with challenges officials hoped wouldn’t arrive this soon.

Originally, the Orioles were supposed to open their abbreviated home season against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday night (after playing them twice in Miami following their season-opening series in Boston), but earlier this week, more than a dozen Marlins players and staff tested positive for COVID-19 after being in Philadelphia, forcing a last-minute scheduling change that put the Yankees in Baltimore for two games.

The Orioles, after flying from Boston to Miami, spent an entire day in the Four Seasons hotel (Hyde recommends the room-service cheeseburger there) while awaiting word on if and when they would play next. They flew back to Baltimore on Monday night and got word Tuesday about playing the Yankees instead. “It’s 2020,” Hyde said. “We’re constantly adjusting.”

Take the story of often-beleaguered slugger Chris Davis, for instance. He spoke to the media on Tuesday about how, despite all the safety protocols—like staying apart in the clubhouse—and just arriving back home after the 24-hour roundtrip to Miami, attempting a season was still worth all the trouble.

“Honestly, the baseball aspect is really what gives you a release,” Davis said. “To be around the guys, to play the game you love, to be out on a baseball field, it takes you a little bit away from everything that’s going on around you—even when you have handwashing stations at the end of dugout and the trainers are spraying hand sanitizer everywhere. There’s enough of a break in between the white lines to give you peace of mind, and allows you to sleep a little better at night, at least there is for me.”

Then the next afternoon, Hyde announced that Davis would be “unavailable” for the home opener, and he hasn’t been around the team the last two days. As per the Orioles policy, you can make your own assumptions on why that is, but a COVID-19 positive test is reasonable. Davis worked out with the team Tuesday night and was penciled in the lineup as designated hitter until sometime Wednesday.

“It’s definitely an unusual year, in every way,” Hyde said. “There’s a lot of things that are really important outside of baseball right now. We’re happy to be playing, but we do know what’s going on outside of our bubble.”

I looked at a picture I took of Opening Day at Camden Yards last year. Fans sat in just about every green seat on a sunny day. The orange carpet lay through centerfield. You could imagine the pomp and circumstance. It felt like I was looking into a time capsule.

It will all come back. We don’t know when, but it will eventually. Until then, though, we’re left with strange scenes that force us to make sense of what we’re seeing.

We think of a few words Hyde uttered the other night from his office at Camden Yards. Someone asked about reports suggesting that Major League Baseball would start playing shorter seven-inning doubleheaders instead of the usual nine-inning game once a day, given the scheduling re-shuffling that was already happening with a COVID-19 outbreak among one team, less than a week into the season.

“This year…” Hyde said, his voice trailing off before he sighed.

And that’s really all that was needed to be said.