That Was Hard

Allow me to begin by saying I love the game of baseball. T-ball, little league, high school, college, minor league and Major League - it doesn't matter - I love baseball. Sometimes this game can be so beautiful and sometimes it can be outright ugly. Tonight's Cardinals/Braves game at Turner Field in Atlanta was one of the ugly ones. Maybe the ugliest one ever. The Redbirds prevailed 12 - 2 in 3:30 in a game in which both teams committed 3 errors, there were moments of seriously bad pitching and just when you thought this game could get no uglier - it did. Now, one may think that it can be very easy to "mail it in" on a game like this but the opposite is true. You have to concentrate harder. For example, the Cards scored in 7 of the 9 innings. Don't ever miss a pitch and don't ever miss a run. We didn't tonight but it was hard. Message to my Atlanta Braves TV friends - you are in for a long season, stay focused or start drinking.

Two Things

The Cards beat the Braves tonight in Atlanta for their first win of the 2016 season. This 7 - 4 contest took 3:00 to play and featured 4 home runs by the Redbirds. 3 of the blasts were of the pinch-hit variety which set a record for Major League Baseball. In the history of the game, there had never been 3 pinch-hit homers by one team in the same game. Those of you who have read my book "Cutting The Game, Inside Television Baseball From The Director's Chair" know that cutting the home run is the most fun a TV baseball director can have during a game/telecast. This win tonight did two things: it caused many Cardinals fans to step away from the ledge and it provided much home run fun for this TV baseball director.

Trust Me

I am flying at 32,000 feet to Atlanta and I am reflecting on the first 3 game/telecasts of the 2016 season. Despite the fact that the Cardinals are now 0 - 3 and despite the fact that the spoiled Cards fans are looking for the nearest bridge, these were 3 very clean shows. Now, I enjoy Redbird wins as much as anyone, but I also realize that we are ONLY 3 games into the 162-game season. Every season contains it's bad games and bad telecasts - that is expected. If the Cards lose, fans believe it was a bad game. If the Cards win, it is a good game. It just so happens that bad games can still be good telecasts and good games can have there share of bad telecasts. So, in summary, the Cards just had 3 bad games but we had 3 good telecasts. Trust me, you will know when our shows are bad.

These Guys Are Good

It took 3:27 and 11 innings for the Pirates to beat the Cardinals 6 - 5 tonight in Pittsburgh. We were the only television feed tonight as the Penguins were being televised from Ottawa. Being exclusive on the road is a rare experience in today's TV sports culture where most every game is televised. In fact, I can't think of too many places that don't televise all games. With local TV, Big Fox, Fox Sports One and ESPN every game of every team is televised locally. I believe the Pittsburgh Pirates are building a strong case to have all their games available for their local fan base. After over 20 years of mediocrity, this team is very very good and their fans deserve to see this team EVERY game. Ok I'm done with that soapbox oration. When a visiting team is the only telecast from the home venue of whomever they are playing, the home team TV crew makes up the crew for the show. That was the case tonight in Pittsburgh and I learned something - this crew is good - very good. I really enjoyed myself tonight. It was great being a member of the Pittsburgh TV team tonight. I hope I didn't bring them down.

No Drama

The Cardinals took on the Pirates at Pittsburgh today in what was the first game in the league of the 2016 season. It took 3:02 for the Bucs to defeat the Cards 4 - 1 at PNC Park. Thank goodness we had a set day yesterday to help us prepare for the season opener. Without a set day our call time would have been 5:00AM. With the set day, the call time as a "soft" 7:30AM. One of the nice things about televising from Pittsburgh is that we are able to walk to the ballpark from our hotel. Still, with the temperature in the mid 20's, it was a cold, cold walk. When we arrived at the truck someone asked me "when is kickoff?" Signifying football weather. Trying to incorporate our game pre-production and 1-hour lunch with the requirements of the 2-hour pre-game show was a little tricky but I believe the pre-game show worked fine. This was a typical game/telecast. The first 5 innings of the game went by quickly and we had a nice flow to the show. The last 4 innings were a bit haphazard from both the game standpoint and the Telecast. If I could have one complaint about this game it was that there really wasn't any drama involved in the contest. Dramatic situations are great fun to cut. Unfortunately, that didn't happen today. Off day tomorrow and back at it on Tuesday. How about some drama?!!!

Getting The Feel

Today was my fifth and final spring training game for 2016. In fact, these 5 games were my first spring training games in 3 years. It is nice to get the feel of baseball as a director before the grind of the regular season begins. This was a fairly smooth game/telecast as were the first four shows. The most distracting events of the day occurred every time the program monitor went to black. The coord in Houston told us that the signal never went black so we knew it was the monitor. Even so, when the monitor went black which it did frequently, it proved to be a bit distracting even though we knew it was just the monitor. Oh well, on to the regular season. Opening day is April 3rd in Pittsburgh. I'm looking forward to my first blog of the 2016 regular season.

Trust

We had a very smooth telecast today. Our TD is the Royals TD and I have worked with him many times. We pretty much know and trust each other. A director must trust his TD knowing that he or she will be able to execute any command. Every TD should trust the director knowing that the director will never put them into a position where they can't execute a command. We had that trust today. The result of this trust was a smooth telecast. Smooth despite the fact that this was a very sloppy game. Early spring training games are generally sloppy because the established Major League players may only get 1 or 2 at-bats and are replaced by "up and comers". The less the experience the players the sloppier the game. The "up and comers" are surely talented, you just can't trust them to provide a Major League effort.