What Just Happened?

Today's Cardinals/Cubs game/telecast was set up perfectly. Cardinals/Cubs at Wrigley Field. Chris Carpenter making his highly anticipated first start of the season. The Cardinals leading the second wild card race by 2 1/2 games over the Milwaukee Brewers who are playing the National League's best team - the Washington Nationals. A great chance to widen the lead in the wild card race. Carpenter and the Cardinals followed this perfect script throughout the game. Carpenter pitched 5 solid innings and the Cardinals were leading the Cubs 4 - 2 with 2 outs, nobody on base with 2 strikes on a Cubs batter in the bottom of the ninth inning. He singled to right field on an inside fastball. The next batter hit a 1 - 2 changeup for a home run to tie the score. The Cubs won the game in the bottom of the 11th inning 5 - 4. As I watched the game tying homerun hitter circling the bases I was stunned. I remember thinking "What just happened?"

The Looseton Astros

The Cardinals beat the Looseton Astros 5 - 4 at Busch Stadium today. This painful exhibition of baseball by the Looseton Astros took an excruciating 3 hours and 27 minutes. The Cardinals who lead the 2nd wildcard race by 2 games are very fortunate. They get to play the Looseton Astros 3 more times this season.

They Know

I figured out the Astros. They know they are bad. They have played so badly for so long that they believe that they are a terrible baseball club. And they play like it. They play with the "let's just get this over with" mentality. They know they will not win. They know they don't have a chance. I am not sure if the rebuilding process for the Astros will work. I believe that these players will only know losing. They are so rock bottom that they cannot and will not get out of the hole. These guys only know losing. They know.

Oh The Pain

The Astros are the worst baseball team I have ever witnessed. The Cardinals beat the Stros tonight 4 - 1 in 3:11. From top to bottom this Astros club is just plain bad. I admire my peers on the Houston TV team. This IS the most difficult job in all of baseball. Covering bad baseball can be very, very painful. The Astros TV team should be hospitalized for the pain they must go through each and every game/telecast.

Complete and Total Crash

We were in the bottom of the 10th inning when the switcher crashed. Down, out, kaput. We were down to one camera (high third) for two batters and then we had camera 2 (high home) and camera 4 (centerfield field). The engineers were working frantically to bring our side of the dual up to speed when we found out that the home show was in trouble also. Unfortunately for them, their only camera was camera 5 (low first). We all understand that these things happen in live sports television. It was just too bad that this incident occurred during the highest rated telecast and most important game of the 2012 season for both the Cardinals and the Dodgers. The game ended after 12 innings and all we had on the dual side was a router that we could punch in individual cameras. From the bottom of the tenth inning on we had no graphics. no Fox Box, and no replays. We felt better about the siuation then the Dodgers' TV production team because the Redbirds won the game 5 - 3.

Perspective

The LA Dodgers scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning after two were out to beat the Cardinals 4 - 3 in 2:55. With the winning run on second base, a soft liner was hit at the Redbird's second baseman who jumped high and the ball caromed off the heal of his glove and bounced away from him. I then took a shot of the runner rounding third base and I stayed on the shot as he slid into home plate. I could have cut to high home camera for the throw home but the play at the plate wasn't really very close so I stayed on camera 5 (low first base) to score the winning run. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to camera 2 (high home) for a better perspective on the play.

LA Is Different

I really like the TV crew here in LA. They are fun to work with, very professional, and you never have to tell them the same thing twice. The problem with LA is not the crew, the problem is the turnover from show to show. I will have 3 different TD's, 7 different camera operators, 3 different tape ops, 2 different audio mixers, 2 different duet operators (graphics)and 2 different video operators in 4 game/telecasts this weekend!The crews here in LA are great. They are just different each telecast.