Yesterday was our final Florida spring telecast.
As I wrote in my earlier blogs, thank goodness for spring training telecasts to work out the kinks before the regular season.
Yesterday’s telecast was very different from the first two. We were in a very small mobile unit. This mobile unit only carries five cameras. 3 hard cams with big lens and two handheld cams with 18X1 lens. One of the differences between baseball television and hockey or basketball television is that while 18X1 lenses are adequate for hockey and basketball telecasts because of the close proximity of the playing surface (court and rink), this lens is NOT particularly usable for baseball. These lenses can be used for baseball, as shown yesterday, but when the tightest shot of the pitcher and/or the batter is above the knees – an ugly shot, the telecast is not enhanced. To make this type of mobile unit more baseball friendly, the truck should carry 5 hard cams and 1 handheld.
The cramped conditions inside the unit are a concern as well. When a baseball TV production team is working a game, there is on or about three hours of split second decisions being made by each member of the team. The more comfortable the conditions, the less likely a poor decision will be made during the game. For example, a family of five will have a much more comfortable and enjoyable three hour car trip in a station wagon than a VW Bug.
The switcher in the truck is one that is not well known by many technical directors. Indeed, the TD yesterday did a fairly good job but being unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable with the switcher caused a few mistakes to be made.
There were some audio problems that were not because of the mobile unit or the audio engineer. An audio “connector cable” was exposed to water and malfunctioned causing the Producer’s audio, when he talked on IFB to the announcers, to go out over the air. My RTS system was ok so I cued the announcers for promos and replays and such. Just another adjustment that a baseball TV production team sometimes has to make to insure as good a telecast as we can.
With the two handheld cameras on board, we switched our coverage and camera responsibilities for the game. We took one of the handhelds and put a couple hundred feet of cable on it and had it roam throughout the ballpark providing beauty “spring training” shots throughout the telecast. We occasionally used it for game coverage as well and these shots were fairly unique to the show. Occasionally throughout our home telecasts, we will use a handheld in this manner to provide a different “look” to the show. I think this will work.
The television broadcast industry has had many changes during my 26 years as a sports TV director. Most of these changes have been necessary and some have even been great. However, it must be recognized that baseball television is completely different from all other sports television and must be treated as such.
Because baseball is a 360 degree sport, there is no “game” camera.
Football’s game camera may change from the 20 yard line to the 50 yard line to the 20 yard line.
Basketball and hockey have a game camera at center court or center ice. These cameras are used for 80% to 90% of the coverage.
During a baseball telecast, all cameras are used about the same amount. The importance of the lens (glass) on a camera makes a huge difference in baseball television coverage. Because each camera in baseball can be used at any time according to the director’s decision, baseball is the only sport where EVERY Director cuts the game differently.
THERE ARE NO TWO BASEBALL GAMES DIRECTED IN THE SAME MANNER.
Limiting a Director’s creativity greatly harms the quality of the baseball “coverage” a Director can provide.
With smaller trucks and dual feeds, a baseball game can be “covered”, but it is the “coverage” of the game that a Director provides that determines the quality of the telecast.
One can put a price on smaller trucks and duel feeds. The numbers are there. The value is in black and white.
The question must be raised; what is the value of quality?

Our second spring training game of the 2007 season occurred yesterday. As is typical of spring training, there was a different truck and a different crew from our first telecast of a week ago.
Our production crew is fortunate that we travel our Technical Director with us for spring training. This person is our usual regular season home game TD. It is quite a luxury to be able to travel the technical director position for these telecasts because a “regular” TD is one who knows the show and this knowledge frees the TD up to be able to dress up the telecast by building bumps for rollouts, back-enders, video effects and such.
Although we had a different camera crew and tape room from our first telecast, yesterday’s crew was confident and aggressive and did a good job.
The score box operator was the same and this operator is one of the best in the country. However, there were some technical glitches with the box. For example, when the pitch was a ball, a single click on the “ball” icon occasionally caused the box to read “walk” and zero the count. Hopefully, this glitch will be corrected by our next telecast which is this coming Sunday.
I was very impressed with the audio technician. He mixed a great telecast.
Audio may be the single most important part of a telecast. The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, sounds from the dugout and the field, when mixed well, totally enhance the viewing experience. Our crew is constantly thinking of ways to upgrade our audio.
The truck and the crew were different from game one to game two, but the camera positions were the same. Because of the spring training venue the centerfield cameras (#4 – CF, #6 – Tight CF) were too low, too close together on the platform, and too much towards centerfield. The mid cameras (#1 – Mid Third, #3 – Mid First) are pretty good. They provide excellent shots of the pitcher, the batter, the dugout and are good shag positions.
After the first two spring training telecasts of this season, the Producer and I talked about utilizing a handheld camera for live shots of action and live shots of the concourse area during the game. We used a handheld camera to collect video for our prepackaged billboards during the first two spring training telecasts. So, for our upcoming telecast this Sunday, we will do a little experiment with the handheld during the telecast.
What better venue to try new methods than spring training?
We will have a different truck.
We will have a different crew.
We will try something different in our coverage.
Who knows? We may even figure out a way to enhance our regular season coverage with the use of a handheld camera.

Adjustments.
How a television production team adjusts to situations that come up before and during a telecast will define the quality of the telecast. It is the very nature of our business. I believe that adjusting to certain situations during a telecast is what makes this profession so exciting. Each and every telecast poses new situations that require split second decisions. During preproduction, something inevitably occurs that causes change in the pre-game “plan” of the telecast.
This past Sunday was the first telecast of the 2007 season.
It was a spring training telecast from Florida.
Every Producer or Director in the baseball broadcasting industry knows that spring training telecasts will be full of surprises. Spring training telecasts are almost necessary for every broadcast team because they prove to be excellent “warm ups” for the upcoming season. Just as the players utilize spring training to get ready for the season, TV production teams use these opportunities to get ready as well.
These telecasts are important because they present many different situations that require adjustments from the crew in the TV truck.
The camera positions are far from the “quality” positions of a major league ballpark. The sightlines are different: the high home camera usually shoots through the back stop netting and the dugout cameras are located on the outfield side of the dugout.
One of the first adjustments we made was during set-up. The low third base camera would not fire, so we moved that camera to tight centerfield. This camera shared the platform with the centerfield camera. There is enough room for two cameras on the platform but just barely enough.
As the game started, another adjustment had to be made when the score box stopped working. The graphics operator used the score box shell and updated the count and score manually. The score box started working in the second inning and the graphics operator adjusted back to his game responsibilities.
During spring training games, the umpires rotate their positions every two innings. This rotation caused another adjustment during the telecast. During the middle innings of the game, the umpire that rotated himself to second base positioned himself in such a location that the home plate area and the catcher were completely blocked when the centerfield camera (camera #4) was used. I immediately told the tight centerfield camera (camera #6), which had a better shot of the home plate area, that he now had centerfield camera responsibilities, and I told the centerfield camera person that he change his responsibilities to that of the tight centerfield camera. (Camera #4, CF, tracks the pitch, follows the batter out of the box, and when his tally light is off shags the ball. Camera #6 follows the batter around the base paths)
Every telecast of the season requires adjustments to be made by the TV production team. It is nice that we also have “spring training” to get us ready for the season.