Our telecasts from the past week have included walk-off home runs, walk-off hits, high drama, incredible excitement, and adrenalin-rushing play.
The production team has left the TV mobile unit wiped out after some of these high intensity driven battles. The challenge of televising games with such passion is great, but the challenge of televising these types of games can really motivate a TV crew. The focus is there, the intensity is there, and the telecasts seem to last only a brief moment.
And then there are games like last night’s game.
The team we cover is in the middle of a pennant race. They have a 1-game lead with four games to play as the second place team had won their game earlier in the day. The importance of the game was self explanatory. Therefore, in the TV production truck, we were expecting a motivated effort on the field and were excited about the prospect of covering such a contest. Indeed, the team we cover won the previous night’s game with a dramatic home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Certainly the momentum from that home run would carry over into tonight’s game.
How wrong we were.
Here was the line score of the game:
224 100 000 9 10 0
001 000 030 4 6 1
Here are the partial pitching lines of the starting pitchers:
Visiting pitcher (Winner) 6 innings 114 pitches 57 Balls 57 Strikes
Home pitcher (Loser) 2 innings 43 pitches 16 Balls 27 Strikes
There were 15 walks and a hit batter.
The game lasted 3 hours and 25 minutes.
Once again, the production team left the TV mobile unit wiped out.
The challenge of televising games with no passion cannot be duplicated. There is no more difficult task for the TV production crew than presenting such a contest.
Every TV baseball crew is motivated to televise every game in a way that is entertaining and informative without disrespecting the play on the field.
Throughout the game/telecast, our production crew searched for entertaining and/or informative snippets of video from the play on the field. Believe me, there was not much to be found. We showed a freeze of the third baseman from the visiting team in mid air as he threw to first base. You know it is a slow night when the most telling graphic of the night showed the pitch count of the visiting starter at 100 pitches. (50 strikes, 50 balls)
In a situation where the TV production crew is presented a script of a game such as this, the focus and intensity is there to keep the telecast moving.
A situation such as this is rare in the TV sports business.
It is not often that the pace of the telecast is faster than the pace of the game. As stated in previous blogs, the Producer cannot control the pace of the game, but the Producer can control the pace of the telecast.
When the telecast out-paces the game, the TV crew is presented with a unique situation. Unique situations in a game/telecast usually occur for brief moments in the show. Capturing these moments are very rewarding for the TV crew.
But, when the unique situation lasts for 3 hours and 25 minutes, it is extremely challenging to the TV production team.
It is exciting to maintain a show with a flow.
It is exhausting trying to maintain a flow to a show with no flow.