Producing local high school sports for cable television is a little bit like working as a bank teller or serving as a church usher on Sunday morning: you’re there to do a competent job and draw as little attention to yourself as possible. More to the point, one of the greatest fears a high school producer or local production company owner has is to be nationally recognized. That would generally mean that his leased-access telecast wound up on YouTube or, worse, on David Letterman, because either the announcer lost his mind and said something beyond outrageous or because a sideline cameraman accidentally wandered onto the field and veered into a tailback headed for paydirt.
Neither of those happened to Scott Singer, owner of Atlanta-based Workhorse Video Productions, but CNN, ABC and Rick Reilly at ESPN The Magazine were breathlessly calling him for comment recently, just the same.
If you missed the above-the-fold A1 story in the AJC two weeks ago, the Cartersville-Stephens County state championship baseball game was marred in early June when the Stephens County catcher – allegedly upset with the umpiring – went to his knees on a rising fastball, just in time for the home plate ump to get a mouthful of horsehide. The immediate speculation after the game was that the catcher and pitcher had conspired to allow the umpire to be hit by the pitch. As it happens, Singer’s video crew was there and the offending clip quickly made its way onto the Internet and YouTube, where, at present, the pitch has been seen by almost a million viewers.
“The press coverage is once-in-a-lifetime and I never thought it would make national news,” said Singer, who received calls from ABC and CNN requesting permission to air it (Fox Cable’s “O’Reilly Factor” also aired it but didn’t bother asking permission, added Singer, laughing.)
PLAY IT AGAIN
Singer, in addition to producing the telecast, also calls the play-by-play and, since his production doesn’t allow for the centerfield camera to be used for on-the-spot replays, he couldn’t be certain he’d actually seen what many already buzzing in the ballpark were certain was malicious intent. “It happened so fast that it looked strange but the game was moving on and the baserunner had moved into scoring position. I kind of thought it was intentional, but I didn’t have a view of it in the game. After, an administrator at Cartersville asked for the video and said he wanted to take it to the state.”
Naturally, since the game was not broadcast live, Singer was able to edit the centerfield camera version of the replay into the television production once back in the edit suite, and a forest fire of opinion and backlash raged immediately once it aired.
Since then, the Stephens County athletic program has been fined, one of the Stephens County players involved has reportedly seen his college prospects dwindle, and there are rumblings that the umpire will take legal action, citing injuries from the pitch’s impact. (Singer has since been accused by the Stephens County coach of allowing the Cartersville team to watch a video feed in its dugout while the game was in progress. Singer angrily denied that accusation.)
PUBLICITY OVERLOAD
All of this happened because the game, out of thousands played around the state in 2008, was professionally televised – and that Internet technology now allows national television networks to easily convert low-resolution Internet clips to full-resolution video.
“It’s like when you’re driving 55, there’s never a cop around,” he said, agreeing that the furor was possible only because it was captured on video. “But I’m proud we did our job the best way we could have and we’ve received compliments that the (telecast) was high quality, “Singer said. “I don’t like the personal attention, though. We’ve gotten a lot of press and we don’t deserve that.”
Singer will freely admit that he’s become friendly with the administrators and staff at Cartersville High where he’s announced football and baseball games for more than a decade. So, he said there is one side of the whole matter that troubles him. “The whole thing hasn’t been good or bad. But the [downside] has been people – instead of Cartersville winning the state championship 12-0 – are talking about an umpire being hit.”
Jeff Batten owns Batten Communications, Inc., the Southeast’s largest independent sports production company. He also owns Complete Game Broadcasting in North Atlanta, a sports broadcasting training facility. His column appears twice monthly in Score Atlanta. Send items of interest to jeff@completegame.tv.
Loading ...
