Baseball Fever!

The Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series! In this time of baseball fever, we ran a baseball photo (banner pic) on Instagram last week that prompted some questions. Have written about this before, but wanted to share again since lots of comments about creative concepts.

The production shot above pretty much sums it up. It’s the only one I’ve got. Back in those days, the picture was the star of the show. Taking assignment time to photograph oneself or shoot and post BTS imagery was frowned upon by the editorial command. Besides, that, there was no place to post to!

Ozzie Smith, legendary shortstop and nicknamed, “The Wizard of Oz,” was great to work with. I did two basic sets, one where he is physically in the photo and another (vastly preferable) where his presence is reflection only. The biggest problem was getting that damn top light high enough to clear the mirrors, which as you might imagine, are highly reflective. The number of mirrors was dictated by A) how many I could fit in the frame and B) a quote I heard about Ozzie that mentioned he was so nimble, “…it looked like he was playing shortstop from five different positions at once.” Such was his range.

The above was not my favorite select, so of course it was chosen for the contents page, and the biggest mirror was cropped out. So much for SI art direction! Slice and dice, make it fit.

We did a number of big production, stylized action shots for this portfolio, bombing around Florida during spring training in a crew and gear van, followed by an eighteen wheel movie grip truck. We were pulling so much power that the small ball parks down there couldn’t sustain the draw. Hence a rolling generator as a source of power, and yards and yards of heavy duty electrical wiring. Below is Keith Hernandez, of NY Mets legend and lore.

And below is Eric Davis, the high flying Cincy center fielder.

All shot on medium format film, which required a bunch of light, mostly from tried-and-true Sports Illustrated Speedotrons. A big clap of light in the ballpark!

Picture opportunities like this dwindled over time. Sports Illustrated’s clout was diminishing badly, and the power agents were ruthlessly addicted to TV time for their star athletes. By the time of the last cover I shot for the magazine, we were down to minutes for a cover shoot. Minutes.

In the grand tradition of Time Warner management, though, even as the magazine’s star was falling at an ever-accelerating rate, and field time and resources were evaporating like a glass of water in the Sahara, certain elements of the SI hierarchy retained dibs on their favorite table at Elaine’s, the posh, go-to eatery for the high and mighty of NY intelligentsia. It’s of course, a time honored management practice.

So be it. It was a fun road to travel, and grateful for the opportunities to work with a Hall of Famer like Ozzie. Mild mannered to a fault, he gave me time to execute a complex photo, and I’m forever grateful.

More tk….