The RF Camera

The Pittsburgh Pirates home telecasts include a RF (radio frequency) camera.

Fox Sports Midwest, home of the St. Louis Cardinals, is working hard to include a RF camera for their 2012 home productions.

What a great tool!

The RF camera is successful in two areas.

The RF camera adds quality to the telecast and the RF camera captures the fun at the ball park better than any other tool utilized by the TV production team.

Thus, the RF camera sells more tickets than any other camera used during a telecast.

Perhaps each team should provide a RF telecast for each home TV production. Just a thought.

I believe that the home telecast should accomplish two goals: put the viewer on the field AND in the ballpark.

Putting the viewer on the field through proper camera and replay usage is the best way to judge the baseball coverage quality of each telecast.

Putting the viewer in the ballpark is another goal of the TV production team during a telecast.

(Both of these goals are equally important)

The best procedure for enhancing the ballpark experience for the viewer is with the utilization of the RF camera.

When the TV production team captures the play on the field with camera shots and replays and shows how much fun it is to be at the ballpark with the use of the RF camera, then the TV production is a grand success.

The Pirates telecast accomplished both goals tonight.

Bravo!

The Edge

In order to keep on top of things during a TV sports telecast, the director must have the "edge".

The TV sports director cannot and must not lose concentration.

The TV sports director must maintain that "edge" at all times.

The director who televises the NFL must have the "edge" for 16 regular season games. These games occur once a week.

The TV directors for the NBA and the NHL televise approximately three games per week. Therefore, the "edge" must be maintained about every other day.

As the TV baseball director for the St. Louis Cardinals, I am in the director's chair for 155 games in a six month period which averages to about 26 games a month.

This presents a credible argument:

Is it tougher to maintain an "edge" one game a week, three games per week or 6 games per week?

I don't believe that any one sport is more difficult than the other when maintaining that "edge". Once a TV spots director is "in the chair", something takes over that pushes the director to perform at a high level of concentration.

That something is the "edge".

For the TV baseball director, once the season starts he/she must get into a specific mindset that is required in order to maintain the "edge" for a six month period. I do not enjoy off-days on the road because these off-days disrupt my mindset. I want to maintain my "edge" especially when I am on the road.

At home it is important to maintain that wonderful "edge" as I direct the game, but it is also very nice to give the mind a break from the "edge". Therefore, I find off-days at home to be very therapeutic. Ask my family and they will agree as well.

Off-days at home are nice.

Off-days on the road with my wife are also nice.

Off-days on the road alone seem to take forever.

I began a roadtrip to Pittsburgh and Chicago tonight.

I have an off-day in Chicago on Thursday followed by two off-days at home on Saturday (Big FOX) and Sunday. (ESPN Sunday Night Baseball)

I am not looking forward to Thursday and I can't wait for the weekend.

It's all about the "edge".

Adjustments

During a baseball telecast, the director is constantly making adjustments trying to develop a rhythm as he/she cuts the game. Adjustments are much more prevalent when the director is working with a road crew rather than the familiar home production team. Making the proper adjustments in developing a nice flow to the show is very rewarding. There is no better feeling for a TV sports director than when you have a nice rhythm going.

The same is true for the athletes on the field during a Major League baseball game.

The key to success for these players is their ability to make adjustments throughout the game.

Pitchers and batters must make adjustments during at-bats.

The most successful pitchers and the best batters make higher quality adjustments than the less successful players.

When adjustments are made by the players on the field quality baseball occurs and the game is a blast to cut and fun to watch.

Perhaps the most important person on the field that determines whether adjustments must be made is the home plate umpire.

Tonight's home plate umpire had an off night. This umpire had such an off night that neither the pitchers or the batters could adjust during the at-bats.

There were bad pitch sequences and terrible at-bats all night long.

This was an ugly baseball game.

When the actions of one person on the field affect the quality of the game then the game is in trouble.

It is true that anyone can have a bad night, (read my blog from yesterday) but it is truly awful when a single person's "bad night" ruins the game.

That is the summary of the Rockies/Cardinals baseball game from Busch Stadium tonight.

Sloppy

Tonight's game/telecast between the Colorado Rockies and the Cardinals was the perfect sort of game to deliver a crisp, clean show.

The game was played at the wonderful pace of 2:27.

Good pitching contributed to this well-played game. The only blip on the pitching radar for the Rockies occurred in the 6th inning when the Redbirds plated 5 runs.

This was the type of game that all TV baseball crews look forward to on their way to the ballpark.

It's too bad that the St. Louis Cardinals telecast of this game did not deliver for the viewers.

This telecast was as totally sloppy affair.

My game cut was the most glaring reason for this ugly, sloppy telecast.

The Rockies scored their only run with a 4th inning homerun. As you may know from my book Cutting The Game, Inside Television Baseball From the Director's Chair (now available on the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook) cutting the homerun is great fun for every TV baseball director. My cut on the Rockies homerun tonight, however, was terrible. There was no flow to the cut, the shots didn't work at all together, and I was embarrassed by this absolutely boring homerun cut.

Near the end of every inning, I plan my shot to break. Sometimes we roll out with video of a particular play from the inning and I don't have to plan my shot. Three times tonight I planned my shot to break and three times the shot didn't work. Once the Rockies manager moved out of the shot just after I took it and an ugly shot was the result.

The most effective shots to break are the ones that revisit, if you will, an important play of the inning. The other two times my shot to break did not work was because I did not adjust to a better shot that would have "revisited" the inning with a higher quality shot.

I was horrible tonight.

I was off a beat all game long and could never develop a flow of the show.

Very, very sloppy and very, very frustrating.

Flawless

The Cardinals beat the Brewers in 2:34 by the score of 5 - 2.

Back to back well-pitched, well-played, and well-paced baseball games.

Now that is more like it.

We had a wonderful flow to the show tonight.

Our regular technical director (TD) was on vacation tonight and I worked with a TD that I had never worked with before. I didn't know what to expect as I arrived an hour earlier than usual to go over the elements with Brad our fill-in TD.

Brad was great!

Cool, calm, and collected.

I knew before we went to air that tonight's game telecast was going to run smoothly.

I hoped the game would follow suit and it did.

Even though I was confident that Brad would do a good job, I went into the telecast "pulling the reins" in a bit. I did not want to overwhelm Brad with too much too early.

I realized very early on that I could be aggressive in my cut and I was not apprehensive in the least to take chances.

I transitioned with one effect to a source and transitioned off with a different effect.

I transitioned from a shot with a lower third graphic on the air side to a different shot with a graphic from channel two.

This guy was flawless!

A great game, a great telecast, and a flawless TD.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Finally

Finally.

After 7 straight games of three hours plus because they were poorly pitched, poorly played, and poorly paced, the Brewers and Cardinals played in a 2:22 game that included good pitching, playing, and pace.

The Brewers fans enjoyed the game/telecast more than the Cardinals fans as the Brewers won the game by the score of 5 - 1.

But because the game itself was one of the better played, pitched, and paced games in the past week, I believe Cardinals fans enjoyed the game/telecast much more than they have enjoyed the previous telecasts from the past week.

I am not saying that Cardinals fans were happy with the outcome of the game, I am just suggesting that the Cardinals fans are so use to well-played, well-pitched, and well-paced games, because Cardinals baseball has been so good for so long, that tonight's game/telecast was a welcome relief to the crap that has aired for the past week.

I admit that Cardinals fans and the Cardinals TV crew are spoiled by the success of the team but this success puts a good pressure on us, the TV crew, to deliver a memorable "look" at the game we are televising.

We owe it to the great Cardinals fans.

Poorly played, poorly pitches, and poorly paced games make our task much more difficult.

Tonight's contest provided us with a nice respite from the horrible games of the past week.

We were given a nice game to televise tonight and we delivered.

Finally.

On And On It Goes......

After completing the most difficult roadtrip for televising baseball that I have experienced in my career, I couldn't wait to get back in the truck for the home game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Surely the combination of televising with our home TV crew and the battle between the two best teams in the NL Central Division would lead to a great and exciting telecast.

Certainly the days of horrible baseball were in the past.

The game had it's exciting moments.

The Brewers beat the Cardinals 5 - 3 in 10 innings in a game that both clubs had a chance to win.

However, the pace of the game was terrible.

The time of this game was 3:53.

I was a bit fried after getting off the air.

I am wondering what tonight's game/telecast has in store for us.

On and on it goes......when this ends nobody knows.