CNN Explains Superimposition of Bat Swinger

An error in Cable News Network’s video control room was blamed Friday for a freak incident in which the ghostly picture of a man swinging a baseball bat appeared on screen during an interview with the mother of a boy whose killer had just been convicted of bludgeoning him with a baseball bat.

The episode occurred Thursday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live” show. Earlier Thursday, 15-year-old Rod Matthews was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the gruesome murder of 14-year-old Shaun Ouillette, and reporter Mary Tillotson was interviewing Ouillette’s mother and her attorney in CNN’s studios in Washington.

At the same time in CNN’s main studios in Atlanta, sports reporter John Fricke, baseball bat in hand, was taping a promo for CNN’s coverage of the 1988 baseball season.

About halfway into the broadcast, in trying to superimpose the “Larry King Live” telephone number on the network’s live national feed, a technician in the master control room accidentally hit the wrong switch, said Steve Hayworth, a CNN spokesman in Atlanta. Instead of the number, the green-tinted image of a smiling Fricke, doing his best Reggie Jackson imitation, appeared on screen for about three seconds.

Hundreds of viewers called CNN to find out how the network could have broadcast such a tasteless image during a discussion of this heinous crime, Hayworth said.

Some asked if the man swinging the bat was the work of some “Captain Midnight” video pirate, he said. CNN explained that the bizarre coincidence was simply a result of an “unfortunate” technical mishap.