By John McCallum
Managing Editor 

Ditch the graphics during the action

Crunch Time

 

Last updated 5/16/2019 at 2:24pm



This summer marks the 50th anniversary of humankinds first walk on the Moon, which you must admit is an interesting way to start out a sports column.

I say that because it’s an event I have memories of when it happened — how old I was (9) and what I was doing (sleeping — my dad woke me up to watch). Like many seminal events in history that we bear witness to, it sticks in your mind forever and you can say “I remember when...” in future years.

I can’t say the same thing about the incorporation of graphics and special effects into our sports viewing process, but I can remember purer times when they weren’t so plentiful. Growing up, the extent of graphics during sports broadcasts was the player’s name, usually in big, blocky, sans serif white letters at the bottom of the screen that were difficult to read on our old black and white TV.

We were relatively safe from being over run with onscreen information during sports broadcasts until early this century, especially during baseball. But in 2001, ESPN came up with the strike zone box — that square thing you see superimposed above the plate when viewing from the centerfield camera.

The box is designed to represent the space above the plate between the top of the batter’s knees and the midpoint of their torso — roughly the bottom of the armpits — that the ball must pass through for the umpire to call the pitch a strike. At least in theory.

While they may not admit it, some umpires have different interpretations of this zone, and even have different interpretations at different points of the game. Some will call a ball a strike if it’s higher than the zone, others lower.

I remember reading that Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax (Jane Leavy’s “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy” is a must read for anybody) used to dedicate his own strike zone. Koufax, who essentially used just two pitches, fastball and curveball, would hurl the ball over the plate early in the game, and keep working the pitch further outside as the game went on, leading the umpires further outside the zone to call the pitch a strike because that’s what they had been seeing (they thought) all game.

You don’t really need the strike zone box to be able to see this live, but God bless the networks, they are looking after us poor mortals. Once the pitch is done, and it’s termination pinpointed, the box disappears.

That is until 2015, when ESPN decided to keep the dang thing up through out the at-bat. That’s annoying.

Now, we have all sorts of graphics for our visual needs during the game. Watching a Mariner’s game (yes, I still watch) the other night on Root Sports, the network would superimpose a sort of pie chart in different colors over the field to illustrate the percentages of where the hitter liked to hit the ball.

Football has all sorts of graphics to diagram plays, including being able to conduct a 3-dimensional rotation around the frozen players to show the play from different angles.

Advertising hasn’t been left behind in this, as you will often note different ad graphics displayed on the field during plays that aren’t there in real life.

First down lines, lines showing a place kicker’s range, you name it, it’s right there in front of our eyes.

In a way, it kind of makes the viewing experience less enjoyable, especially when the graphics are displayed real-time during the action and not only replays. I appreciate the network’s desire to give us as much information as possible, but wait to do it.

But then again, that’s the age we live in — the Information Age where we crave as much information as we can possibly get when we want it. So be it.

And anyway, we did land on the Moon.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.

Author Bio

John McCallum, Retired editor

John McCallum is an award-winning journalist who retired from Cheney Free Press after more than 20 years. He received 10 Washington Newspaper Publisher Association awards for journalism and photography, including first place awards for Best Investigative, Best News and back-to-back awards in Best Breaking News categories.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Our Family of Publications Includes:

Cheney Free Press
Ritzville Adams County Journal
Whitman County Gazette
Odessa Record
Franklin Connection
Davenport Times
Spokane Valley News Herald
Colfax Daily Bulletin

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024

Rendered 02/15/2024 20:57