THE CROWD EFFECT : Noise May Inspire Some Competitors, but It Bothers Others

There are moments in sports and then there are moments in sports.

Take Wimbledon last summer. Barbara Potter, who had become the fabulous fortnight’s tabloid queen after changing her shirt during a match--and who would probably require a similar change during this match--had attracted a sizable crowd at one of the few tree-lined courts this particular day.

The scene was remarkable in a number of ways. There were people who had climbed all manner of growth and construction for a better view of Potter and, if things went right, her underthings. Yet, amid all this voyeurism, play went on uninterrupted.

Not until a lad, perched high above the court, moved farther out on a limb and rustled some leaves was there need of official comment. The umpire, in a matter-of-fact kind of way, said, without even turning around, “Quiet in the trees.”

Quiet in the trees. Wimbledon could tolerate the full range of human behavior, it seemed, unless it was accompanied by noise.

But it’s not just Wimbledon. Any major tennis tournament and, for that matter, any major golf tournament, insists on the kind of silence that normally attends open-heart surgery. Well, that’s not quite true. Center court, with John McEnroe scowling at the photographers, is far more still than any operating room.

Meanwhile, other sports, which require a similar concentration, are routinely conducted amid bedlam. A baseball pitcher looks into the batter’s box, apparently unmoved by the crowd’s roar. No volunteers hold up paddles that say “Quiet.”

Imagine the free throw shooter stepping back from the line to glare at the crowd. Or the kicker calmly waiting for a National Football League crowd of 65,000 to become quiet-- to behave themselves! --before he addresses the football.

This is one of those age-old questions in sports, the kind that will never be answered. Sort of like, “Why does a baseball manager wear a uniform?” Or, “Why does anybody get into the ring with Mike Tyson?” No good reason.

So why do you have to keep your trap shut when a golfer’s at the top of his swing but you can yell, “Your mama!” just as the free throw shooter releases the ball? No good reason.

Great Moments in Noise: In the 1987 World Series, ABC-TV hit on the idea of measuring the noise level in Minneapolis’ Metrodome, notorious for its fans and its acoustic properties. According to a spokesman for the Minnesota Twins, ABC discovered that the noise level, after a home run by Kent Hrbek, was about the same as the sound of a jet taking off.

“It shattered their, uh, something-o-meter,” he said. “I also remember that (St. Louis pitcher) Joe Magrane wore earplugs.”

Magrane was slammed pretty badly and his Cardinal teammates complained throughout the series that they couldn’t hear anybody calling for the ball.

But everybody was affected. The Twins’ Greg Gagne, after a teammate’s home run, turned to Cardinal catcher Tony Pena and inquired if his ears were ringing.

“But he couldn’t hear me,” Gagne said.

Baseball players ordinarily do not mind the racket. In fact, at Shea Stadium, they are not only undisturbed by anything approaching the sound of a jet taking off, many are casual about the jet itself taking off and landing.

The big planes’ glide path into nearby LaGuardia takes them right over the baseball field, and not over it by all that much.

“Someday,” says a pitcher, who preferred to step off the mound until the plane was far enough away that he could no longer actually identify passengers in the window, “one of those babies is going to park itself in an upper deck.”

The roar is considerable. Yet many Mets, used to it, don’t bother to step out of the box at the jets’ passing. Most visiting ballplayers draw the line there, though.

The Dodgers’ Mike Marshall was talking about it during a recent trip to New York. He said he always steps out when a jet passes overhead but, if he played for the Mets, he might not bother.

All in all, though, he said he doesn’t mind the noise. In fact, he needs the noise.

“You’re rounding first base, the crowd noise is as important as the first base coach,” he said. It’s one of those aural clues that anybody else might not consider. But the visiting team’s base runner might conclude from the collective gasp of the crowd that the ball was dropped or misplayed. And he goes for second.

Great Moments in Noise, II: Any Indianapolis 500 start, where the sustained revving of 24,750 horsepower, 33 engines in full throat, is actually moving. Three hours of it, of course, is pretty stupid.

We have said that baseball players are ordinarily not bothered by crowd noise, as opposed to their tennis and golf brethren. Did we mention Burt Hooton, one of the few players ever yelled off the mound?

It happened in Philadelphia, where Hooton and his Dodgers were playing for the 1977 National League championship. Hooton, retired as a player but still with the Dodger organization, recalls it somewhat vividly, if unhappily.

“Let’s see,” he said. “Playoffs, 66,000 fans in the stadium and I’m losing my cool. Got as noisy, noisier, than those jets at Shea Stadium, except it went on and on, every pitch.”

Hooton was the starter in Game 3 and was into the second inning, holding a 2-0 lead. There were a couple of men on base and two out and he was pitching to the Phillies’ pitcher, Larry Christenson. Then on a 1-2 count, Hooton reared back and threw what he believed was Strike 3. Out of the inning.

“Harry Wendelstedt called it a ball,” said Hooton. “I turned and kicked the rubber real hard. Everybody seemed to be watching. A few started yelling, then more picked it up and it just started to go around and around. You stick that much noise . . . “

Hooton was rattled, and badly. He walked the next four batters on a total of 21 pitches.

“I never got my composure back,” he said.

Hooton was eventually lifted and walked off the mound accompanied by that favorite tune of all fans, “Rhapsody in Boo.”

Great Moments in Noise, III: Bill Murray, in “Caddyshack,” imitating a golf announcer’s annoying play-by-play whisper, “Incredible Cinderella story . . . former greenskeeper . . . he holes the shot! He holes the shot!” You can barely hear him.

Football players can get upset over a little noise, too. Not that it upsets their concentration so much as it affects play calling. As in baseball, disruption most often occurs in a domed stadium, and most often especially in Seattle’s Kingdome.

The folks in Seattle say this complaint is unfair.

“Football is an opportunity for the fan to express himself,” said Seattle spokesman Gary Wright. “And just because our fans are particularly sophisticated about football . . . “

They have been “sophisticated” enough over the years that rival clubs have finally pushed through legislation that penalizes the home team for excessive noise. The new rule goes into effect when the offensive team, presumably the visiting team, is still unable to call signals after the crowd (i.e. the home team) has received two warnings. It’s a five-yard penalty.

“It becomes almost unsportsmanlike,” said Jim Heffernan of the NFL.

Ever since the first domed stadium, though, it seemed that this problem would have to be dealt with.

“It’s always been discussed in the past,” Heffernan said. In fact, it came to a vote and failed once before. It stops the game and once it stops . . . well, the officials have urged the quarterback to stay up there but once they step back, that’s asking for it.”

Teams have found ways to deal with this, somewhat. The Raiders have practiced with tapes of crowd noise roaring in the background. The Denver Broncos, for that matter, found a very good way to quiet the Kingdome. “John Elway came in and threw a long pass to start the game,” remembered Wright. “Very silent.”

The Seahawks came up with a no-count offense for their own visits to unfriendly domes.

“You have to be creative, inventive,” Wright said. “I can’t reveal how (Coach Chuck) Knox gets it done, but there are ways. It should be incumbent upon the team to find a way. It’s part of sports, to win on the road.”

The NFL, however, likes parity from top to bottom, home and away. The vote passed, 21-7, to further dampen the home-team advantage and the Seahawks can anticipate several miles worth of penalties until their sophisticated fans catch on.

Great Moments in Noise, IV: Greg Norman at the 1986 U.S. Open, actually going into the crowd, with murderous intent, after a noisy fan.

This brings us to golf and if we could just keep it down a little bit for this part of the story, we’re sure all the golfers would appreciate it. Sssh! Please!

Now, there is no reason that golf has to be played in a library atmosphere except that it always has been. There is no defending the logic of the proposition.

Yes, you’d like to be able to concentrate on an eight-foot putt for the green jacket. But why doesn’t the field goal kicker in the Kingdome get the same respect when he’s lining up a 40-yarder and the Super Bowl is on the line?

Ken Venturi, who won the U.S. Open in 1964 and who now whispers from atop a tower for CBS-TV, said:

“It’s all a matter of what you’re raised with. You grew up practicing alone, you played in a quiet foursome, you had the serenity of a golf course. If, on the other hand, you had learned the game in front of a crowd, the tradition might be different. But when you practice alone, there is all that silence.”

Ah, tradition.

“It’s what golf is all about,” Venturi admitted. “If someone said, ‘Now we will have noise,’ you’d manage. Lining up a putt takes the same concentration as the free throw shooter or the placekicker, after all.”

There is one difference, which is that basketball and football are played in a more or less constant roar. Golf has very little to roar about until that key moment.

“Like when I would be at the top of my swing and the silence would be broken by the clunk of one of those old box cameras,” Venturi said. “You flinch. You can’t help it. It’s like sneaking up behind a surgeon during open-heart surgery and saying, ‘Gotcha!’ ”

Hey, there, not so loud, Ken.

If you buy any of this, then you, too, find yourself wandering up and down the links, saying everything in a whisper.

Venturi does. Before a tournament he’ll have someone stand down on the green nearest his tower and test how loud he can whisper without being heard. Still, he said, “they glare up at me sometimes.”

It’s silly, of course. But it would be sillier, considering how we invest our sports with such bodies of tradition, to change it. Backing a quarterback off the line of scrimmage should be part of the game and shame on the fans--and the NFL--who let him get back up to call his signals. Being quiet in the trees should be a strictly enforced policy of tennis. And whispering should be the preferred behavior in a golf gallery.

“You know,” said Venturi, “I think some of the mystique of golf is how quiet 25,000 people can be. There’s a lot of drama in silence.”

Occasionally, it’s just as dramatic to hear how loud 65,000 can get. Just depends. For fun, try it sometime when Greg Norman is drawing his putter back on, oh, about a 12-footer. See whathappens.