For years, Fox Sports has been criticized for its quick-cut players/fan reaction shots between pitches.Sunday night, the technique came back to bite the network.
As a result, a St. Louis woman holding a rebird hat (puppet?) will forever be a part of one of the most unusual endings ever to a World Series game.
Fox lingered a bit too long on the woman. All of the sudden, Joe Buck yelled out and there was a quick shot of Mike Napoli applying the tag to Kolten Wong from a terrible camera angle. Viewers never saw Koji Uehara turn and make the throw for the dramatic pick-off.
It wasn’t until the replays were shown that we had any perspective of what happened.
The reality is that all the networks show player/manager/fan reaction shots between pitches. So what happened to Fox Sports last could have happened to any of them.
However, the fact that Fox insists on doing so many of them, to the distraction of many viewers including this one, warrants a more intense finger-pointing after what happened last night.
If a similar situation occurs in Game 5, the Fox cameras should just stay with the pitcher. You never know when he will turn and throw to first to end the game.
Could not agree with you moe here, Ed. It’s not just the 9th inning where they do these ‘cut away’ shots; it’s all game and very distracting to the baseball purists! Enough already!
If I am correct, Bill Webb is the Fox director, and he has been at this forever, so he really should know better. It’s time for Fox to go back, watch how Harry Coyle did it at NBC, and learn.
FOX simultaneously ruining news & sports for years now. Only clever & lasting contribution to society was The Simpsons — in 1989!!!