Aaron Judge says Yankee Stadium’s in-game sound effects are aimed at the people in the seats, not the players on the field, adding a new voice to a dispute that has been building since the middle of the 2024 season. The Yankees captain said the stadium speakers are placed in locations that cater to fans, while he and Jazz Chisholm Jr. think the music is too quiet from their position on the diamond.
That split matters because the same sounds that many fans say distract from the baseball action are also bleeding through to television viewers, who once had a more tranquil listening experience. Gary Phillips described the blaring between pitches as “noise pollution” in an April 17 New York Daily News piece, underscoring how the argument over volume has become part of the game-day experience at Yankee Stadium.
Judge also said the atmosphere on the field feels stale compared with other MLB ballparks, a blunt assessment from the face of the New York Yankees organization. Complaints from Yankees players in 2024 prompted the team’s in-game media staff to research how other parks use sound during games, a sign the organization has already begun examining whether the current setup fits the way baseball is played in its own stadium.
The friction is simple, and it has not gone away: fans think the effects are too loud, while players think they are too quiet. That leaves the Yankees trying to manage a ballpark that is meant to feel energetic without turning the action between pitches into another source of noise.
For now, the debate is less about whether the stadium should use sound and more about who it is supposed to serve.
