The Scare

Today's Cardinals and Cubs game/telecast included one of those scary moments that occur so infrequently that when they do the complete complexion of the show changes.
Cardinal's pitcher Blake Hawksworth was hit in the face by a line drive.
I was just about to take camera 1 live as it was shooting Hawksworth and just before I did Hawksworth rolled over and the very graphic picture of his distorted face appeared in the camera one monitor.
There was no way I could have aired that shot.
The ball had hit him in the mouth and his mouth was distorted in a hideous way.
As I write in my book, Cutting The Game, Inside Television Baseball From The Director's Chair (www.cuttingthegame.com), this is the only instance in a live sports telecast that the Producer and Director can gather their wits and decide to air the shot or not. Every other decision we make is in a split second with no time to ponder the shot and it's importance to the telecast.
Like every other horrific injury on telecasts that I have been a part of, these ugly moments take the life out of the ballpark and the telecast.
The crew for today's show was a patchwork of TV techs from around the country. This game was a late add-on to our telecast schedule and, because it was on a saturday during the college football season, a crew was hard to find.
This crew was great!
Every member of this telecast contributed to a very good, clean telecast.
It is too bad that we were all involved in covering a very scary moment in the game.