Al Michaels: Twins used fake crowd noise in ’87 Series

By Kevin Cusick
St. Paul Pioneer Press
MINNEAPOLIS - Longtime Twins fans no doubt remember Al Michaels’ famous line from the 1987 World Series that “now we know what sound feels like.”
Well it turns out the longtime broadcaster believes there was something funny about the jet-engine decibel levels recorded at the Metrodome during that glorious autumn.
You’ve heard the accusation before: Fake crowd noise.
Does Al believe in Metrodome audio miracles? Yes!
“Minnesota’s in the World Series against St. Louis, and it was ridiculously loud,” Michaels said Wednesday during an interview on Pro Football Talk Live on NBC Sports Radio. “I’ll never forget Scott Ostler was writing for the L.A. Times, and he described the (Metrodome) crowd as 54,223 Scandinavian James Browns.
“I’m going, wait a minute. This is a baseball game,” Michaels told the host, NBC colleague Mike Florio. “Nobody is screaming like this when the fifth inning starts. ... To me, there was no question” that the crowd noise was not natural.
Michaels recalled how ABC’s attempt to gauge the noise level resulted in a broken sound meter.
“The decibel level had gotten higher than a runway at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport,” Michaels said.
The issue of fake crowd noise came to the fore this week when Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank apologized for the team’s use of it during games at the Georgia Dome.
Michaels said he also has long suspected the Vikings of pumping in artificial noise.
“It would come back in an unnatural setting,” Michaels said of ear-splitting sound at Vikings home games. “It wasn’t that important a play, and all of a sudden you’re hearing this cranked up (noise).”
Was the Metrodome filled with dishonest decibels? Not according to Bill Lester, who ran the Dome back then as the head of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission.
“There were a few urban myths,” Lester said in a 2013 interview with Sports Business Journal. “They didn’t pump anything extra in.”
Of course, Michaels’ memories of the ‘87 Series might be colored a bit negatively. He famously got into a verbal spat with a Minneapolis TV columnist over off-air comments Michaels made about his Minneapolis hotel accommodations.
Bob Lundegaard reported that Michaels, during commercial breaks on the ABC satellite feed, complained about his hotel room and the ‘87 Series in general. Michaels responded the next night by calling Lundegaard a “scumbag” and a “jerk.”
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