By Mike Miller
St. Louis, MO
Twitter: @MikeMillerSTL
The first pitch of the night left Dakota Hudson's right arm and landed in Yadier Molina's glove at exactly 6:45 p.m., a ball that caught just outside the outside corner to start Monday's first inning against the Washington Nationals.
For the FOX Sports Midwest team, the night started much earlier.
To stream a St. Louis Cardinals in the air — and making sure things run smoothly once it's done — it takes a full day of preparation to get the business off the ground. From there, a team of about 50 people work to piece together each game's story as it happens.
It's controlled chaos as the FOX Sports Midwest crew reacts to the action and weaves the audio and visuals into a telecast package that reaches hundreds of thousands of fans across the region each night. Whenever — and wherever — the Cardinals are on the field, there's an army of crew members working behind the scenes to bring the game to spectators.
“I think people would be shocked to see how many people are in the pregame, game, postgame show,” FOX Sports Midwest reporter Jim Hayes said. “It needs a lot of people.”
On this night, play-by-play announcer Dan McLaughlin and analyst Jim Edmonds man the booth. McLaughlin, a St. Louis native, is in his 22nd season as the play-by-play voice for Cardinals telecasts, while Edmonds, a 17-year Major League Baseball veteran, is in his fourth season in the booth. Edmonds is one of four in-game analysts the network uses for telecasts, bolstering a roster that includes Brad Thompson, Rick Horton and Tim McCarver.
For Edmonds, a Cardinals Hall of Famer, the series against the Nationals included three of the roughly 50 games he works each summer.
“I'm having a lot of fun with it,” Edmonds said. “I started wanting to do this because I wanted to keep my family around the game and I enjoyed it. Every day I like it more and more. It was awesome.”
Edmonds' focus is to lend his expertise, especially in situations, as the times call for it. It is McLaughlin who has taken the action for all 162 games. That starts with background checks on players long before they make the trip to Busch Stadium.
On Monday, McLaughlin arrived at the field at 3 p.m. for a speech, one of more than 30 assignments he assists with during the season. Once that was over, it was back to preparing for the series opener against Washington.
“I try to get in the clubhouse if I can, visit with players, visit with (coach) Mike Shields,” McLaughlin said. “Then I come here (to the broadcast booth) and assemble my card. In September, it takes even longer with the calls.”
By 6pm, it's time to complete the preparations for the live broadcast. McLaughlin puts on his jacket, grabs his microphone and takes his place at the front of the booth. At 6:10 p.m., he records the segment that will lead off the live broadcast. Tonight, the big story is the availability of closer Carlos Martinez, who missed Sunday's series finale against the Milwaukee Brewers due to illness.
McLaughlin takes it down to field level, where Hayes offers a hopeful, timely update on Martinez's likelihood to play.
“That's good news,” says McLaughlin. “We hope to see Carlos at the back end of the game tonight.”
The people in the truck handle the package from there, lining up the final pregame preparations as the clock ticks down to first pitch at 6:45 p.m. There, the technical crew plans a broadcast that will reach an estimated audience of more than 310,000 Monday night viewers.
They work in the dark interior of the truck, where the soft glow of more than 100 screens of different sizes illuminate the quarters. This particular truck is only a few months old — complete with new-truck smell — and its cramped but friendly space serves as a control room for all the action.
This is where producer Bryan Schapiro, director Tom Mee and technical director Nick Thompson orchestrate FOX Sports Midwest's army of cameras to piece together the story of each game. Storytelling is the main focus for Schapiro, who visits the booth at 6:37 p.m. to get Edmonds' key to the game before the telecast went live.
At 6:40 p.m. the open — the short segment about Martinez that McLaughlin recorded with Hayes half an hour earlier — airs. Things are picking up now. It's show time.
Martinez's condition isn't the only news leading into the series opener. The Nationals traveled to St. Louis without manager Dave Martinez, who underwent a cardiac catheterization Monday in Washington. That means Mee has to coordinate with one of the camera operators to find bench coach Chip Hale in the Nationals' dugout. Once Hale is located, Mee calls over his shoulder to graphic producer Keith O'Brien, who is instructed to type Hale's title as “acting director” into the graphic to be shown before the first screening.
Once Hudson delivers his opening bid, the crew settles into his routine. Each camera in the FOX Sports Midwest arsenal is identified by a number on screens in front of Mee, who shouts those numbers to Thompson as the action dictates.
“Take 5,” says Mee, directing the broadcast to broadcast the game from Camera 5. “3 — Stay there 3… Take 6.”
Mee has the full experience to know what he is doing. The veteran director first worked in the business as a camera operator, stage manager and television producer for Minnesota Twins games before joining the Cardinals broadcast crew in 1988. A 12th-round pick of the Atlanta Braves in 1977, Mee draws on his playing experience to predict moments in the game while giving viewers an up-close window into the action coming to life in front of them.
After Hudson induces a groundout from Juan Soto to close out the top half of the first, Mee instructs his camera operator, Phil Nichols, to run down the field and follow Hudson to first base for the Cardinals.
Having a remote allows Mee to place a camera on the field, giving viewers an up-close advantage.
“Go get him, Phil!” Mee says.
In the bottom half, Mee has even more material to work with thanks to Marcell Ozuna.
The Cardinals left fielder whips Busch Stadium into a frenzy when he mashes a fastball from Nationals first baseman Stephen Strasburg into the left-center stands for a two-run homer. As fireworks explode overhead, the men in the truck shout instructions to capture the moment in a suitable television package.
One of the voices belongs to Mark Winter, who handles the FOX Box rating bug in the lower right corner of the screen. At his fingertips, Winter has his hands on all the relevant nuggets of in-game stats that fans at home might find useful, such as pitch count and number of outs, among other key figures. Moments after Ozuna goes deep, Winter delivers the key metrics of the explosion.
“412 feet, 106 mph off the bat,” barks Winter.
It's already a busy day for crew members like Schapiro, who arrived at the park about five hours before the first pitch. As part of his duties, Schapiro oversees all sponsorship, team and promotional elements that must appear on screen during the evening's broadcast.
For this game, Schapiro has 48 items to cross — a standard number for most Cardinals broadcasts.
As the game continues, and the Cardinals claw their way to a 4-2 victory, these scenes continue to play out in the truck and in the stands. At 9:50 p.m., after swinging at the second pitch seen by none other than Martinez, Ryan Zimmerman ends the game on a line drive to outside center.
The game is over, and so is another FOX Sports Midwest broadcast.
