Now that this guy has face-planted on national television, we'd like to address the whole issue of what we feel is an excessive amount of media people on the field.
One of the great things about being a player is owning the space you play on. Four umpires, two coaches on the baselines, and that's it. It's your mound. You roam center field. Fans stay in the stands, and it's great to be you.
Ask the Stanford marching band about the proprieties of entering the playing field.
Unfortunately nowadays there are more and more media people on the field. When a team wins a playoff series and celebrates on the field, there are as many camera operators as pitchers. You watch and you can see players having to weave through photographers and video crew holding shooting overhead or close-up, standing or mindlessly stumbling , bouncing off one player or coach or another and clogging up this 40-man happy dance. Watching on tv, we see them getting jostled around and knocked aside and wonder, what the hell are you doing, get out of the way!
One venerable handheld camera shot is from third base to home plate during a home run trot. The angle is low to the ground and at a sharp upward angle and rattles alongside the runner all the way to the plate, and then tracks backwards as it follows the player(s) to the dugout. It's an annoyingly useless shot but tv directors seem to love it, who apparently think their audience loves it. Or should love it.
We here do not love it. On our screen, it's irritating. At the game the whole media circus looks more like a taping of "Pet Star"than a sporting event with cameras in the stands, wandering around the sidelines, interviewing whoever before and after the game, even going out to the mound with the poor schlep throwing the first pitch. We get that's the way it is, but during the game, that is a crime. We cringe at the sight of police and security that pops out onto the field between innings, standing still with their hands behind their backs, staring down the crowd, reminding us we're not having fun, we're a step closer to the real world. But while there's live play, it's better when tv broadcasts a baseball game, not produces a baseball game.
There's nothing like snapping a picture from your front row seats at third base of Adrian Beltre taking a historic home run trot, and having some camera guy in your shot. Unless it was this camera guy, then you both took a good shot.
Please, all media people leave the field. You're not needed. Leave it to the players.
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