Some things just spoil you and you can’t go back to the pedestrian way of doing things. I was a baseball fan in the late 80s, lost it somewhere in the high school swirl of punk music and girls, and didn’t get it back until 2003. I was a broadcaster looking for a gig, and on a random February afternoon I passed by Frontier Field in snowy downtown Rochester and thought to myself, “I know they do a television feed in there, I wonder if anyone can join?” So I walked in the front office door and asked if they needed a cameraman. I was given an immediate yes, told to report to a meeting at the end of the month, and ever since I’ve been going through that door from April to the end of August. By the end of the season, I always feel like I need the break, that the days of baseball are too numerous, but by January, I’m itching in my seat to start again, and I begin a rough countdown in my head to opening day.
I wish I could go back to the season I worked every game. It was a different feeling watching the team play every day, I knew the players names and styles better that year. I was also doing cameras at that point, instead of directing the video feed for the game. Being on camera gives you a better perspective of what’s going on over watching the game through four different monitors. On camera, especially the one high up behind home plate, your job is to follow the ball. So you square up the shot between the pitcher and the batter, and then at every crack of the bat you jerk the camera to follow the ball, sometimes to centerfield, sometimes to the foul area in the stands by first base, sometimes and the hardest, straight to the shortstop for a quick out. It’s a learned instinct for sure. But high home as we call it, allows you to take the moments in between pitches to see what other players are doing, to scope the entire ball park, to people watch the fans in the stands and suites. Other camera positions, though just as necessary for telling the story of the game, are far inferior but still give you the sounds, the smells, the feel of being at a ball game from a unique perspective. Sometimes after a few days of shooting from behind the net, it’s worth the break to go work a camera in either team’s dugout. From that point of view you get to hear the cheers and disappointment of the ballplayers as the game goes back and forth, or as is sometimes the case, merely plods along leaving you in desperate need of a bathroom break.
I now however walk in the front door to a different job. It starts an hour or more before game time, I push pass the fans already queued up waiting to get into the suites, and I’m immediately greeted by Phil, the friendliest usher on the face of the earth. A few years ago, the Democrat and Chronicle did an amazing story on Phil and agreed wholeheartedly that starting a work day with a handshake, a hug and a “great to see you” really puts you in the mood to enjoy your job. From there I turn a quick corner, ride the elevator up the two flights to be greeted by the second best usher in all of baseball; Charles. If you’re in a rush Charles will readily accept your quick wave, but if you want to meander and sit a bit, he’ll hold a great conversation on anything from how the team’s doing, to the weather, to the vacation he‘s planning for late September. The next stop is to say a quick hello to everyone in the operations control room. They’re the guys who put up the scores, stats, player pictures and the fan rousing graphics on the scoreboard. After seeing who’s doing the PA announcements, and asking long-time organist Fred how’s he’s hanging, I head to the broadcasting control room.
When I started, the television control room was literally a closet. Only one person could fit in it, and it had a quickly aging video switcher with the audio board and graphics built into it. The only other console was for the replay machine, which, simple enough, was a VCR with slow motion capabilities. Not everything had a monitor assigned to it, and you had to spend most of the game craning your neck up at a fuzzy TV that sat five feet above your head. Fortunately as of last year, we’re now looking at a sweet HDTV that shows all four cameras, the replay computer, various stills and graphics, and program and preview monitors. Occasionally this is too much for the system, the processor can’t keep up in the late innings, the picture freezes and we have to do a quick reboot. The new switcher, while plastic and quite light feeling, is digital and can handle many more inputs, more channels of graphics, and stores both still pictures and short video clips. However it runs Windows XP, so you can imagine the dread of unreliability an operating system that’s no longer produced creates. The new replay computer is has a greatly increased quality picture and can instantly recall plays from past innings. A full Mackie audio board gives much better control over the announcers and the sounds of the game, and the graphics computer sourced right into the switcher gives the director the ability to keep up the score line and add titles for batters and pitchers.
Coordinating all this with the four cameras is what the job of directing the broadcasting feed is all about. Usually everyone is asked to keep quiet for an inning as the director regains the feel and the pattern for the game. After the first six outs a conversation starts on anything of interest, as nine innings is a long time even for participants to focus on a baseball game. Hopefully underneath the conversation, the camera people can hear what framed shots are being requested and can realize through their tally lights when their camera is hot. If there starts to become too much talk and too much confusion is the moment the stress starts, but hopefully a pattern is set up of which camera gets what shots.
With a bit of luck the game goes quicker than its average 2 hours and forty-five minutes. In case of rain or extra innings, usually someone is found to blame who could’ve possibly jinxed the time frame by mentioning the threatening skies or pitching ability of the reliever. The recipient of the blame gets heavily harassed on this point. Win or lose, by the end of the ninth, everyone is happy to have the game finished and assignments are made for either a post-game interview or to help the camera people break down their stations.
About mid-way through each season, I start to feel that this should be my last season of directing ball games on my valuable days off. That just a few years ago it was more fun to come and punch the buttons between cameras, and that we laughed more on our headsets to pass the time. But at the end of each summer, I can already tell I’ll be back next year, because I’ve been spoiled too much not to want to be a part of a professional baseball game from behind the scenes.
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