There are three segments in our show before the first pitch. Last night, in the first segment, we talked about the previous night’s starter and the concerns about his career. This led to commentary on the starting pitcher for that evening where we displayed a graphic that showed he had only faced three members of the opponent in his career.
The second segment was about the team’s two catchers. The usual stating catcher had a sore arm but the backup player was doing extremely well.
In the third segment, we talked about the NL Wildcard race.
There were two memorable moments in the telecast.
During the top of the second inning, the visiting club tried a suicide squeeze. The pitch was a hard breaking ball, outside on the first base side of the plate. The catcher, the backup we talked about in segment two, made an absolutely fantastic play. He backhanded the ball in the dirt as he stretched out as far as he was able. He turned around, and with the runner bearing down on the plate, dove and tagged the runner. In the process, he sprained his back and had to leave the game. The injured catcher, who usually starts and was part of our segment two as well, entered the game at this point. (It is nice when we are able to revisit a segment of our show open and this play allowed us to do just that.) This play will be remembered as one of the best plays of the season. I do not ever remember showing six different angles of replays in covering something that happened in a game. But that is what we did. Usually, camera angles may be too similar or a camera may be shooting something (isoing) not apropos to the play so not every camera angle will be replayed. But in this instance, all six angles worked. It was a memorable sequence, rare, but memorable.
The other memorable moment in the show had nothing to do with the action on the field. On of our cameras found a young Cardinals fan sitting in the third row next to the Cardinal’s dugout. This fan, wearing Cardinals garb, had a red number 5 painted on his right cheek. During the fourth inning, number 5 for the Cardinals was at the plate. I took a shot of the young fan as his favorite player was batting. After the shot, I told the camera to reposition and shag. The Producer said, “Let’s leave the camera on the young fan and see what he does.”
It turned out to be a great idea.
Two pitches later, number 5 hit a foul pop up that went over the young fan. He raised his glove in eager anticipation of catching the ball hit by his hero. The ball and the first baseman both converged on the tarp at the same time and the first baseman was unable to hold on. We replayed the play and the young fan’s reaction and it was one of our better replay sequences of the night. This moment only gets better. On the next pitch, number five hit a homerun. Of course, we included the young fan with the number 5 on his face in the replay sequence. His reaction was priceless.
This was an excellent example of a split second decision by the Producer, an adjustment to coverage made on the fly that worked. Our producer is not afraid to take chances during telecasts and this is a rare trait in our business. It is a rare trait because the rate of return on something memorable happening when we take a chance is very low. Therefore, many production teams do not think it is worth it. But, when something memorable happens because a chance was taken, it is well worth it.
During last night’s telecast, the Producer “took a chance” and it worked.
Last night, two rarities occurred during our telecast. A six-angle replay sequence and a moment where a chance was taken and a memory was made.