Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Second Best

The most fun a baseball TV Director can have during a game/telecast is cutting a walk-off win during a home game.
The second best time a TV baseball Director can have is cutting the game leading up to a possible walk-off situation in the game.
Today, I was fortunate enough to cut a game where the Cardinals were down 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded and two outs. To make matters even more exciting, the Cardinals entered the ninth inning down 3-0.
Needless to say, Busch Stadium was electric.
Our crew fed off this energy and our coverage of the bottom of the ninth inning was crisp and sharp.
With one out, the Cardinals hit back to back doubles to left field. The left fielder actually should have caught both balls. Our replays highlighted this fact with the final angle of each replay sequence being a super slo-mo look.
Brewers 3 Cardinals 1
The next batter for the Cardinals was hit by pitch on a ball thrown up and in. This really fired up the Cardinals' manager and energized the crowd even more.
When the game is on the line and the crowd is going crazy, the television crew is really feeds off this scenario and really gets pumped up.
Then, with two outs, the Brewers first baseman made an error on a groundball which scored a run and left runners on first and third.
Brewers 3 Cardinals 2.
The next batter walked to load the bases.
The Brewers manager than replaced his "closer" with Trevor Hoffman, the Brewers former closer who is the all-time saves leader in baseball history with 697.
We aired a graphic stating the Hoffman had blown 4 of the last 5 possible saves against the Cardinals.
Brewers 3 Cardinals 2, bases loaded and Busch Stadium rocking!
On the first pitch from Hoffman, the Cardinals batter hit a hard line drive that went foul down the third base line.
We showed a great reaction from the Cardinals' dugout on the hard hit ball and this look really stoked up the excitement level of the situation.
The Cardinals batter eventually struck out on three pitches and the energy level in Busch Stadium literally disappeared.
It is very rewarding to the television crew when a home game walk-off victory does occur.
However, cutting the game leading up to a possible walk-off victory is also a blast.
It's just second best.

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