On Monday September 25, 2012 the Baltimore Orioles played a
doubleheader (two games back to back) against the Toronto Blue Jays. Doubleheaders are rare in baseball and
especially this season, as the only other time the Orioles participated in one,
was on May 9th. Doubleheaders
present a unique challenge for the broadcast team in the booth during
play-by-play and color commentary, especially for the 2nd game. They have a lot more information that needs
to be included in the broadcast as they have the task of reviewing the previous
action while keeping the viewers focused on the current game. I noticed a couple ways that the broadcast
team chose to accomplish this feat.
For one,
they clarified any changes that might have confused a fan who watched the first
game. The broadcast team tried to do
this as early as they could. Some
examples would include the play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne addressing the
Orioles uniform changes (they switched from white to orange) and giving the
reasoning behind the switched. His
response: “just because they can.” As
well as the new umpire behind the plate and how he calls his strike zone.
During the first inning most of
the time was spent going over statistics of the batter’s last game and how he
played. This is unusual because that
time is usually spent going over season statistics. I noticed that information got pushed back to
the player’s next at bat. Additionally,
the color commentator’s (Mike Bordick) role was diminished at the beginning of
the game, because the play-by-play had to go over more review and spend less
time on analysis of that current game.
Something else I noticed was the
type of play the color announcer would talk about. He didn’t attempt to analyze every second of
the game. Sometimes an ordinary
first-pitch-fastball doesn’t need to be broken down. He tried to pick out the significant
developments and the more important plays, the ones that stick out in
everyone’s mind. This allows for more
in-depth analysis of the game and also helps to make him look like even more of
an authority. His words are rarer, and
therefore perceived as more valuable. Something
else important would be the descriptiveness of his analysis, where the more
details the better. One instance that
stood out for me occurred after the Baltimore pitcher threw a strike. Bordick said: “Great pitch by Wei Yin Chen to
follow that fastball. Down and away it
looked like it was going to be in the same location as the last pitch, which
gives the batter a huge advantage but it had great movement at the end and
tailed off just in time.”
These are two skills I am going
to be working on while doing sports broadcasting for the university. As a play-by-play announcer I will try to get
background information and statistics done early so that the focus can be on
the current game. As a color commentator
I will work on picking and choosing my analysis so that I can give better more
relevant information.
