Maybe Fox Gets Too Close to the Action

Carlton Fisk’s waving his game-winning home run fair in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series is one of the more memorable moments in baseball television history, even though the Cincinnati Reds came back to beat Fisk’s Boston Red Sox in Game 7.

The shot of Fisk captured the emotion of the moment.

Directing that telecast was the legendary Harry Coyle, who died in 1996 at 74.

Baseball producers and directors have been trying to capture similar emotion ever since. The question is, do they sometimes go overboard?

Do we need to look at the pores in a player’s skin, his nose airs, the blood vessels in his eyes to see the emotion? Not even Tom Cruise would look good through the telephoto lens baseball directors have fallen in love with.

We sat down with Fox’s John “Flip” Filippelli, one of the most respected sports producers in network television, and director Bill Webb, whom Filippelli calls “the Harry Coyle of his time,” after the Padres’ 7-6 loss to the Braves in Game 5 in San Diego.

It had been a great game, and Filippelli was wound pretty tight.

“This was not only the best baseball telecast I’ve ever been involved with in my years in sports television,” he said, “it was the best I’ve ever seen.”

He wasn’t ready for anything negative, so a question about the extensive use of extreme close-up shots of players in the dugouts got this response: “If you don’t like close-ups, you’re nuts.”

It was pointed out that the problem is they are too tight, and that others don’t like them either.

“Anyone who doesn’t like them is nuts,” he snapped.

Webb, more composed, said, “We’re trying to capture the intensity in the eyes, not the pores in the skin.”

We later watched a tape of the game, and, at one point saw not only Kevin Brown’s eyes, but his right eye. It took up the whole screen, blood vessels and all.

There was also a close-up of Ken Caminiti drooling as he spit sunflower seeds. Of course we are always treated to plenty of saliva on baseball telecasts.

The extreme close-ups make some viewers uncomfortable, and Fox isn’t the only guilty party. NBC went inside Joe Torre’s facial stubble Wednesday night during his postgame interview with Jim Gray.

Getting that close is really an invasion of privacy. No one wants to be photographed that way.

But don’t expect Filippelli and Webb, who will be producing and directing the World Series, to pull back. Apparently, their thinking is, the closer the better.

Another problem: There are simply too many emotion shots, of players and fans. Nothing wrong with some, but they can be overdone.

Overall, Fox has done a good job during the postseason and hasn’t missed much. But it did miss one thing in Monday’s game.

The three-run home run by the Braves’ Michael Tucker in the eighth inning was the big hit. But the deciding run was scored when Tony Graffanino was awarded home because the ball left the field of play on a throw to home plate. Where did it go? Fox never showed us.

That may be a nit-pick, but it’s not a nit-pick to ask Fox to pull back on those emotion shots and also not do so many of them.

ANOTHER NEW TOY

Although it sometimes seems television has too many toys, most innovations have been good for baseball.

Fox and ESPN’s score graphics that also keep track of the inning, the count, how many are out and the speed of pitches are great. So is the tape machine called “Elvis” that enables replays of pitches to be shown in rapid-fire succession.

Catcher Cam has provided some dramatic shots of plays at home plate.

Now Fox will try something new during the World Series. Called a Super Shot, it will be tight super slow-motion replays of plays on the field. It could be a routine play by the shortstop, showing only his glove and hand as he fields a ground ball, or it could be a close play at one of the bases.

“It’s more a new philosophy than new technology,” Filippelli said. “Super slo-mo, high resolution cameras have been around for a while. We’ll just have one following the ball and taking tight shots.”

Fox, at least internally and off the air, will call the camera “Coyle Cam.” Considering Coyle spent 42 season with NBC, a Fox competitor, that’s quite an honor.

In fact, Ed Goren, Fox’s executive producer, has joined Filippelli, who trained under Coyle at NBC, and Michael Weisman, former executive producer at NBC, in leading a movement to get Coyle into the writers’ and broadcasters’ wing of baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Coyle certainly belongs there.

“With apologies to Reggie Jackson, he is the real ‘Mr. October,’ ” Filippelli says.

Weisman is now an independent producer but works for Fox on baseball (and for CBS on NFL football). He’ll be working alongside Filippelli on at least the first two Series games.

“Michael Weisman is the best producer ever in sports television,” Filippelli said.

Maybe Weisman can convince Filippelli that we’re not nuts, that there is such a thing as getting too up close, and such a thing as too many crowd shots.

SHORT WAVES

With ESPN now doing postseason baseball radio coverage, the announcers on the Series will be Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. That’s right, no Vin Scully. . . . ESPN radio, which has added Dennis Eckersley as a studio analyst, will use Charley Steiner and Kevin Kennedy as reporters. . . . If the Dodgers had any doubts about Kennedy’s baseball knowledge, they should have been listening to him do the National League playoffs for ESPN radio. He was tremendous, and right on the money time and again.

IN CLOSING

ESPN is finally conceding there is some decent college football on the West Coast. “College GameDay,” with Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit, is coming out to this part of the country for the first time and will originate from the Rose Bowl Saturday, beginning at 8 a.m. ESPN is asking fans to get there early so the show will have an audience. The 12:30 UCLA-Oregon game will be on ABC.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Oct. 10-11, including sports on cable networks.

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Baseball: ALCS, New York at Cleveland 4 10.3 21 Baseball: NLCS, Atlanta at San Diego 11 10.2 27 College football: Notre Dame at ASU (12:30-2:15) 7 3.1 9 College football: Nebraska at Texas A&M; (2:15-3) 7 3.6 9 College football: Notre Dame at ASU (3-3:45) 7 3.3 8 Golf: PGA Michelob Championship 4 2.0 6 College football: Tennessee at Georgia 2 1.7 5 Horse racing: Jockey Club Gold Cup 4 1.4 4 Hockey: Kings at Edmonton 9 1.3 2 Hockey: Mighty Ducks at Washington 9 0.9 2

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Cable Network Rating Share College football: UCLA at Arizona FSW 4.3 8 College football: Indiana at Michigan State ESPN 2.2 7 College football: California at USC FSW2 1.8 4 College football: Louisiana State at Florida ESPN 0.5 1 College football: Kansas State at Colorado FX 0.2 1

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Baseball: NLCS, Atlanta at San Diego 11 11.7 22 Pro football: Denver at Seattle 2 10.0 23 Pro football: San Francisco at New Orleans 11 7.8 20 Pro football: Kansas City at New England 2 6.5 16 Golf: PGA Michelob Championship 4 1.7 4 Soccer: MLS playoffs, Chicago at Galaxy 34 1.3 3 Soccer: MLS playoffs, Columbus at Washington 7 0.8 2 Hockey: Mighty Ducks at Philadelphia 9 0.6 1

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Atlanta at New York Giants ESPN 3.5 6 Auto racing: NASCAR Winston Cup Talladega 500 ESPN 1.6 4

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WEEKDAY RATINGS: Monday--Baseball: NLCS, Atlanta at San Diego, Ch. 11, 14.9, 23; Pro football: Miami at Jacksonville, Ch. 7, 12.1, 19. Tuesday--Baseball: Cleveland at New York, Ch. 4, 13.4, 23. Wednesday--Baseball: San Diego at Atlanta, Ch. 11, 7.4, 22.

Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.