2 Different Games

The Cardinals beat the Brewers tonight by the score of 13 - 1 in 2:34. I cut two different games tonight. The Cardinals starting pitcher, Jake Westbrook threw 7 innings allowing 7 hits, 1 earned run, no walks and 5 strikeouts. He threw 101 pitches with 69 strikes. The Brewers starting pitcher, Yovani Gallardo, lasted only 2 innings allowing 8 hits and 8 earned runs. He threw 68 pitches -39 strikes and 29 balls. When Westbrook was on the mound we were able to develope a nice flow to the show. He worked fast and threw strikes. With Gallard, finding arhythm was very difficult. The Cardinals led 10 - 1 after three inning when they plated 8 in that inning. With the game basically over at that point I was really proud of our St. Louis TV crew. Everyone still worked hard and never once slacked off. Brian McCann produced his first game of the season and did a great job. This is the type of game where people could "mail it in". Blow out games are definately fun to do if you are on the winning side but we would all prefer a well-pitched game by both teams. The Cardinals are on FOX tomorrow so our next telecast is Sunday. Zack Greinke against Jaime Garcia. I looking forward to a 2 - 1 game.

Working Two-gether

Televising sports requires a total team effort. The are two main parts to every telecast. There is the tele and there is the vision. The tele part is supplied by the announcers in the booth and the vision aspect is supplied by the TV truck. The vision part of the TV truck also consists of two parts - the camera operators and the tape room. The camera operators must listen to two different sources - the announcers and the director. The director listens to two different sources - the announcers and the producer. The tape room listens to both the producer and the director. In turn, the announcers deal with two aspects as far as the tele is concerned - the live camera shots and the video replays and packages. The quality of every telecast depends totally on the meshing of the two sources that every member of the telecast must deal with. Today's Cardinals/Cubs telecast was a perfect example of what happens when the whole TV team works with both sides of the telecast. The tele and the vision become television when the sources are equally intertwined. Just like today's telecast.

Learned A Lesson And Proved It

As I wrote in yesterday's blog, I learned a valuable lesson when I was not prepared for a Cubs walk-off victory. I proved that tonight in the Cardinals/Cubs game/telecast. The Cubs won again in walk-off fashion by the score of 3 - 2 in ten innings. Remembering last night's debacle, I iso'd the winning run, the game winning batter, the Cubs bench with a push from the batter and the Cardinals reliever who took the loss. The final cut of the game worked. It was tight and concise and told the story. But the final sequence was not even close to the best aspects of our telecast tonight. The Cubs scored a run in the bottom of the first inning on a sacrifice fly. However, our replays clearly showed that the runner never touched home plate. Then, in the bottom of the 10th inning (when the winning run scored) the second base umpire blew a call on a steal attempt. The second baseman of the Cardinals actually blocked 2nd base with his spike and tagged the runner for a sure out. However, once again, our TIGHT camera shot of the second base bag (framed left) clearly showed the baserunner never touched the base. This runner eventually scored the winning run. These two camera shots and replay sequences were the best of our season. Indeed, they were a couple of the best moments we have ever had on Cardinals television. I love what I do for a living. I learn something every game/telecast.

Learning A Lesson

Tonight's Cardinals/Cubs game at Wriglet field was everything that a Cardinals/Cubs game at Wrigley should be. The game between these two fierce rivals was intense with great pitching from both starters. The Cubs won the game with a 2-out, 2-run walk-off single by former Cardinals Joe Mather. A typical scenario for a matchup between these two clubs despite the fact that the Cardinals are a very good ballclub and the Cubs are rebuilding. In fact, coming into the game the Cardinals were 11 - 5 and led the 4 - 12 Cubs by 7 games only 16 games into the season. I just offered my excuse for my terrible cutting of the game winning walk-off basehit. I prepared myself totally, 100%ly (is that a word) for a Cardinals victory. I had the Cardinals closer Jason Motte iso'd as well as Redbirds manager Mike Matheny. Never in a million years did I even think the Cubs would win this game. It never crossed my mind. Even with the tying run on third base and the winning run on second base I never once thought the Cardinals would lose this game. It did not help matters that Mather took the first two pitches (fastballs) down the middle for an 0 - 2 count. Well, Mather singled and the Cubs won and my coverage was awful. Terrible. Talk about embarrassing. Trust me - I learned a lesson tonight.

Nicely Done

The Cardinals beat the Pirates today by the score of 5 - 1 in 2:38. This was a very clean telecast. We had our "regular" Pittsburgh crew and they were stellar. Despite the fact that this was a dual feed telecast we had a good telecast with concise camera shots and excellant replays. I like working in Pittsburgh. The ballpark is beautiful as it fits into the downtown area and we can walk to our hotel after the game. The crew is professional and very friendly. Nicely done Pittsburgh. I am now in my hotel room in Chicago. We have two night games followed by a day game at Wrigley Field in the next three games. I write about Wrigley Field in my book Cutting the Game, Inside Television Baseball From the Director's Chair. I love Wrigley Field. We will be televising in a side by side situation and I hope our telecast will be as clean as today's show. Cardinals/Cubs at Wrigley Field. It doesn't get any better than that. I hope at the end of the telecast I can say "Nicely done."

Attitude

MEMO TO A FELLOW CREW MEMBER TONIGHT Guess what fellow crew member - I love what I do for a living. This is my 29th year of televising Major League Baseball and I have seen every single type of crew member in the business. I have seen the very talented who love what they do and are very successful. I have seen the not so talented work there ass off, love their job and be successful. I have seen the ones who try and try and try and just about get there but they keep trying and every so often they deliver a quality product. I have seen the crew members who don't give a hoot and are just there to pick up a paycheck. And I have seen the worst of the worst. The member of the crew who doesn't care and doesn't care that we know he doesn't care. Well Mr. Doesn't Care guess what? You don't affect the other members of the crew who do care. You don't affect us one little bit. In fact, you make us better because we work harder to make up for your lack of quality. We have a name for you Mister Doesn't Care - Mr. Invisible.

Familiarity

We started a 3-game series at Pittsburgh with another rare exclusive feed. With the Pittsburgh Penguins playing the Philadelphia Flyers at home tonight in the fifth game of their first round Stanley Cup Playoffs the Pirates did not televise. Exclusives are usually a very nice change from the dual feed and the comfort level does go up. Things were a little different tonight however. The truck was super nice but the engineers had never worked out of PNC Park before. The regular Pittsburgh TV crew were all working the playoffs. Our substitution crew was very professional and did a great job despite the fact that many of them rarely worked baseball. The crew was from all over the country. One was from Buffalo, New York and another from Dalton, Georgia etc. Even during road telecasts there is a bit of familiarity between the visiting broadcasters and the local crew. Not tonight. We had never worked with this crew and they had never worked with us. The telestrator crapped out early and the Fox Box was nevere able to animate. We solved that issue by losing the bug at the third out and inserting it after the operator moved it to the lower third position. No big deal. All in all this was a nice telecast. The Cardinals won 4 - 1 in 2:38.