We had a pretty funny moment the other day in our production booth at the Kansas City Monarchs where I’m working this summer as a part-time emcee and part-time pitch clock operator. The environment of a press or production box is pretty unique. There’s a lot of dark humor, a lot of passion about the games you’re working on, and a ton of down time. So there’s a lot of chatter between the people you’re working near.
There aren’t a ton of rules other than just maintaining some level of professionality. That being said, there are two cardinal rules in a production/press box. The first is that you never cheer for the home team. Most of the employees are employees of the club, so this rule is relatively hard to enforce – but some level of dignity is appreciated by those who are just covering the game.
The thing that every person in one of these boxes is religious about is getting the game over with quickly so they can go home. Working a sporting event is exciting and a unique opportunity that many never get to do – but it is still a job, and the best part of a job is when it ends. So the second rule is much more religiously adhered to – and that is to never mention when a game is going swiftly and NEVER mention the possibility of extra innings or overtime.
With a minor league baseball team, the club often relies on younger kids just out of high school or interning for college credits. So most of those folks are getting their first opportunities in a working press box. As they are new, they don’t yet know the rules about working in a production box.
As you probably know, the game of baseball is undergoing a transformation trying to shorten the time of game and reduce the dead time between pitches and plays. So across all levels of baseball, average game times are falling from over three hours to around two and a half hours in many cases. But a game over in less than two hours is very rare. This was one of those games. The Kansas City Monarchs were winning 2-0 heading into the ninth inning. The Monarchs are playing very well. They’ve been hitting the ball great, which was to be expected, but the pitching has also been very strong, and this was a game where both pitchers were really throwing well. There were a total of four hits in the game thus far and we were really moving along.
This is where our intern had what we call a “teachable moment” in the business. He was sitting running our statistics machine and declared “Wow! We might get done in two hours!”
At this point, you could hear the record scratch as all 12 of us in the room turned to look at this kid – knowing that he had just pulled on Superman’s cape. He had spit into the wind. He had challenged the baseball gods.
We began the inning with two quick outs. So at first, we were thinking maybe those baseball Gods weren’t listening. Then the third hitter jacked a homer out to left field about 422 feet. I know that because our Dakstats guy was also starting to sweat a little bit after taunting the karma of baseball.
Now it’s 2-1 with the tying run at the plate. A four pitch walk was next. Now the tying run is on base and we are really starting to let this kid have it. “Taunt the Gods, will you???” “This is why we don’t allow interns to speak.” “So help me if this game goes long…”
A base hit put the tying run in scoring position. Then there was a long mound visit. Our “under two hour” game was barrelling towards extra innings.
“I’m sorry!! I apologize to the baseball Gods!” Our intern exclaimed into the sky. This was immediately followed by a pop fly to right field for the third out and the end of the game. Time of game: two hours, eleven minutes. Still swift by any measure – but a learning opportunity for one of our own.
There are certain rules against nature that you cannot break. Taunting the Gods of baseball is right up there.
(Chris Kamler challenges the Twitter gods quite often on the tweet machine, where you’ll find him as @TheFakeNed)
