The imagery of professional sports permiates society today. We are inundated with video and stills of baseball, football, basketball, even soccer, everywhere we look. With things like NBA League Pass, NFL Sunday Ticket, and MLB.tv, fans get to watch any game they want anywhere they want. Fans today are proprietors of sports knowledge and imagery, storing, studying, and cultivating it all over the internet and in day-to-day conversations.
Can you imagine what life was like before television, or even before radio? How did fans interact with games like professional baseball when the only way they could consume it was to attend a live game? Even while they were there it was doubtful any fan could see and comprehend most of the pitcher's wind-up and delivery, where the eyes of the players were focused, or the "accuracy" of any calls at the plate. We take these things for granted, with slow motion cameras and high definition imagery that hits players on the field from every angle.
Can you imagine what fans thought when, for the first time, a motion picture camera captured imagery at 200 fps, allowing the motion of a catch, a throw, and a call to be slowed down and dissected? If you guessed there was a public outcry, you'd be right.
This short blurb is from the October 23rd, 1920 issue of Exhibitor's Trade Review. ETR was a short-lived film trade daily that ran from 1921–1922 and was full of technical schematics and serial film blurbs for exhibitors and camera operators. What made "The Great Baseball Scandal" so interesting at the time was the technical capabilities of the camera. 200 frames a second was unheard of back then, seeing as most pictures were filmed in 16 FPS and played back at 18-24 FPS. Looking back now, it's highly entertaining to see how outraged fans at the time were to see how dirty the game was played. There was simply no other way for them to see those details before motion picture cameras.
The man that filmed "The Great Baseball Scandal," Lincoln A. Borthwick (awesome name!) also directed "Headin' Home," the 1920 motion picture about Babe Ruth staring the Bambino himself.
Isn't history cool?
Can you imagine what life was like before television, or even before radio? How did fans interact with games like professional baseball when the only way they could consume it was to attend a live game? Even while they were there it was doubtful any fan could see and comprehend most of the pitcher's wind-up and delivery, where the eyes of the players were focused, or the "accuracy" of any calls at the plate. We take these things for granted, with slow motion cameras and high definition imagery that hits players on the field from every angle.
Can you imagine what fans thought when, for the first time, a motion picture camera captured imagery at 200 fps, allowing the motion of a catch, a throw, and a call to be slowed down and dissected? If you guessed there was a public outcry, you'd be right.
This short blurb is from the October 23rd, 1920 issue of Exhibitor's Trade Review. ETR was a short-lived film trade daily that ran from 1921–1922 and was full of technical schematics and serial film blurbs for exhibitors and camera operators. What made "The Great Baseball Scandal" so interesting at the time was the technical capabilities of the camera. 200 frames a second was unheard of back then, seeing as most pictures were filmed in 16 FPS and played back at 18-24 FPS. Looking back now, it's highly entertaining to see how outraged fans at the time were to see how dirty the game was played. There was simply no other way for them to see those details before motion picture cameras.
The man that filmed "The Great Baseball Scandal," Lincoln A. Borthwick (awesome name!) also directed "Headin' Home," the 1920 motion picture about Babe Ruth staring the Bambino himself.
Isn't history cool?
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