Monday, April 09, 2007

STO Scrambles With Tribe Move

Television production can't often turn on a dime, but SportsTime Ohio is doing a lot of dime turning this week.

With baseball officials moving the Cleveland Indians series with the Los Angeles Angels to Milwaukee's Miller Park, STO says they'll air the three-game set as scheduled - scooping up a last-minute commitment on a production truck in Wisconsin, and flying staffers up to Milwaukee.

The sole casualty of the move will be STO's HDTV telecast, which won't take place since the games will not be in the already-equipped-for-HDTV confines of Jacobs Field.

STO's release says that in place of tonight's cancelled games with Seattle, the network will turn to its archives to re-air the "enhanced version" of Len Barker's perfect game.

And different, since last time this classic game aired on STO - that game's color commentator, Bruce Drennan, is now a staff member of the network...

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

they totally couild have played the 2 games today. It's been sunny since 3pm. Dummies...

Anonymous said...

You forgot about the 10 inches of snow they are STILL clearing off the field - it is now nearly 5:30 and the infield is still buried - what time were they supposed to start the DH - 9pm?

Anonymous said...

You're right, I forgot all about that! That's probably because I was so busy with your mom.

Anonymous said...

OK let's take it out of the 4th grade with the "mom" comments.

Jacobs Field is under about 10 inches of snow and they cannot put any equipment on the field because it is so saturated they'll tear it up. What are they supposed to do? Plus at night it is dipping into the mid 20's so it is re-freezing all over again. Coupled with the rain that is expected this week it has been a very bizarre start of the 2007 baseball season.

I do like however that everyday I check the standings the Tribe continues to be playing .667 baseball.

Anonymous said...

Question is--

When they do they play these four with Seattle? It was the Mariners only trip into Cleveland..and will MLB finally learn its lesson and quit scheduling the Tribe for early April games in Cleveland? Even if they open the third week in April, this will come back to haunt the Indians when C-C is on the DL having his annual injury and the bullpen is fried..and a trip to Cleveland to play the Mariners happens in the middle of a road trip..

Anonymous said...

they could not have played today...the snow was too much to handle to make the field ready...

get a ^^%^%$$^% grip.........

on the other hand...kudos to the people in the background...who worked hard thru the holiday weekend to make sure the snow can get moved...the tv games can get on and the radio network affiliates were informed......
this is the sports broadcasting version of a destructive hurricane and those people...whose names we don't know, nor probably never will know ,deserve a high five for getting things done.....

Anonymous said...

We got to see Ducks on the Pond Drennan announcing baseball tonight.

Anonymous said...

It's a reality that there has to be some home games in April. You can't build your fan base from May on and you can't expect the warm weather cities (and dome cities) to accept a ton of April dates and precious little when the weather is better and the pennant races are heating.

That said, it also seems senseless to schedule teams that make only one visit for the April dates. At least schedule division opponents, so make-up games can be spread across the schedule.

And the idea that the home team can't control the game because it involves an opponent making their only visit is an outrage. Of course, these umpires have a lot of explaining to do, after allowing the "opener" to start, playing through repeated snow squalls, then calling the game one pitch from being official.

All this shows how out-of-touch MLB is.

Oh, and as an aside...if you folks continue with the juvenile behavior, you can be certain that we will lose this forum entirely.

Anonymous said...

After Listening to Levine the past few days and Rizzo the past few weeks, it is embarrassing that Salem went with the lineup that they did for so long. These guys are obviously pros and can obviously build ratings and consequently, advertising dollars. Forgetting the personal stuff and just analyzing their shows, is it not clear that Levine and Rizzo could carry a station? They can actually build a listening base.

Anonymous said...

It wouldn't be the first time that Rizzo and Levine carried a station. Given a little time and promotion, WHK-AM could have built a nice audience with the Voice of the Fan format based on those two.

But Rizzo and Levine came up "the old fashioned way". They learned the ropes, paid their dues and moved up when they were ready.

There's little opportunity for that anymore. It seems as if Catan and Bender might have developed similar skills if they had spent some time in small market stations and then moved up.

Anonymous said...

Salem went with the line up they had for so long because they are a broadcasting company dealing primarily with religion formats on almost all their stations. If I'm not mistaken,[and if I am, feel free to correct me] I think WKNR was their only station that did not have a relgious themed format. So either they didn't care or were not sure what to do and just left it alone till it could be sold.

Anonymous said...

That's my understanding, too. I don't know why it took so long to sell, but it certainly seemed like a poor fit with the rest of Salem's group.

If Salem had really wanted to own a sports station in this market, they could have retained WHK-AM's Voice of the Fan format. It seems clear that the company had no real desire for sports formats.