In Major League Baseball’s rules and regulations package for restarting the season, even when the COVID-19 virus refuses to give way, the effects the pandemic will have on the way members of the media do their jobs too could be footnotes.
That’s understandable given the general changes required for the schedule and the implementation of complex protocols just to start a 60-game season.
Still, the media changes are significant and will have a noticeable effect on what viewers and listeners receive for a broadcast of the game.
Some notable rules: Only 35 members of the media will be allowed per game in the stadium, including photographers but not broadcasters; interviews with players and other personnel will be conducted by videoconference; Reporters must leave the stadium within one hour of the end of the post-game interviews.
The rules for television and radio equipment are different from anything that has been done before. Home teams will provide a “neutral” feed for each game, with instructions to show players from both teams equally; TV commentators will not be at the ballpark for road games, but will be calling for power, but radio announcers will be allowed in the road booths.
The Red Sox broadcast crews for WEEI and NESN radio are in the process of uncovering their approaches, but some groundwork has already been laid for the July 23-24 reboot.
Surprisingly, NESN intends to stream all games, including Fenway Park games, from its studios in Watertown.
“I think we are going to do all of the NESN games right now, subject to change,” said Dave O’Brien, the Red Sox game voice on the network since 2016. “What they tell us is that NESN will give us everything we need, tons of monitors, different looks, actually there could be more access if players are going to be fooled.
“Food must be excellent. But it sure will be different. “
O’Brien said the expectation is that analysts Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley will join him, at a safe social distance, of course, in a three-man “booth” for the 60 games.
“It’s a great thing that we can have our favorite stand for 60 games,” said O’Brien. “If it was 162, it probably wouldn’t. But 60 games, we can make that work. “
At this time it is unclear whether NESN will air any “spring training” games.
On the radio side, Joe Castiglione, a Red Sox radio voice since 1983, said there have been no meetings on the final plan yet. But he has been told that the plan at this time is that the radio team will not travel for road games.
“As far as I know, the first plan was to do all the games at Fenway, with us doing the off-screen games at Fenway,” Castiglione said. “But nothing is cut into stone.”
One area O’Brien and Castiglione disagree on is the effect a stadium without a fan could have on a broadcast.
“It’s hard to quantify how big the deal of not having fans will be,” said O’Brien, who worked on the radio side with Castiglione between 2007 and 2015 before moving to NESN. “The sound of the crowd is the bed we lie on. It is the soundtrack.
“As an announcer, you trust the crowd. Xander [Bogaerts] breaks a three-run homer in the eighth inning to take the lead, nothing can touch that sound of the reaction of 37,000 fans. We can let Fenway fill the moment. For these games, we’ll have to let something else make up for it. ”
Castiglione, who said he has spoken to some production people who believe the ambient noise from the crowd “would not sound false,” said the absence of a crowd would not change the way he calls the game.
“The crowd right after an exciting play is important,” he said. “But when it comes to the actual play, I don’t think that affects that. You are concentrating on the action and describing where the ball is. So I don’t think any fan in the park is a big factor. “
While Castiglione is used to crowds of more than 35,000 people at Fenway, and team president Sam Kennedy has said there is a possibility of having fans at the ballpark later in the season, the station has some experience calling games in front of rows of empty seats. .
“I made games on my first job [for the Indians] at the Cleveland stadium, where there were 3,000 people in an 80,000-seat stadium, ” Castiglione said. “My freshman year, ’79, the Oakland Athletics, in those days when [A’s owner] Charlie Finley would not pay his bills, they had around 800-1,000 people in the stands.
Cleveland Indians against Oakland Athletics last. No one over there. We’ve been there before. “
O’Brien and Castiglione are on the same page with this: they are happy that the game is coming back, even in its short and unfamiliar form.
“Going back into the game, despite all the rancor from the negotiations, I hope it will be a good thing for everyone,” O’Brien said. “I think it will be.”
Castiglione said: “I hope the virus cooperates and we get out as scheduled. But 60 games is better than none. “
