If a baseball game is not televised, does it still occur? That hasn’t been a question for many decades, with every regular-season MLB game usually televised on at least the home and away team’s local broadcast partners, to say nothing of national outlets. But the beginning of the Los Angeles Angels-Detroit Tigers game Tuesday night was not carried on either Bally Sports West (Angels) or Bally Sports Detroit (Tigers), thanks to an issue with the production truck or trucks:
The Tigers and Angels game isn’t on TV yet because of power outages in the Bally Sports Detroit and Bally Sports West broadcast trucks pic.twitter.com/txorqHJMXh
— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) July 25, 2023
Due to a loss of power with both television production trucks, the start of tonight’s Bally Sports Detroit and Bally Sports West broadcasts will be delayed. The game will begin on time.
We will provide more information as it is available.
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) July 25, 2023
Update from Detroit:
Due to a loss of power with both television production trucks, the start of tonight’s Bally Sports Detroit and Bally Sports West broadcasts will be delayed. The game has started on time.
The game can currently be heard on @AngelsRadioKLAA.
We will provide…
— Angels PR (@LAAngelsPR) July 25, 2023
The pre-game show here went about as normal. But just five minutes ahead of the scheduled 6:40 p.m. ET start, Bally Sports Detroit started running a “technical difficulties” line on-screen during their ads, and then cut to a technical difficulties graphic, with TV broadcasters Matt Shepard and Dan Petry then delivering a radio-style call for the next 35 minutes (apart from commercial breaks). They delivered that “baseball via radio on TV” with just “technical difficulties” on the screen, and with the broadcasters’ audio sounding like it was coming from a submarine:
Bally Sports Detroit's broadcast of Angels-Tigers began with a "technical difficulties" graphic, then saw broadcasters Matt Shepard and Dan Petry say those difficulties would keep them to "baseball via radio on TV." (Bally Sports West's Angels feed had issues too.) pic.twitter.com/H9oh3YlnQg
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 25, 2023
They then got video back 35 minutes into the game, but the sound issues remained:
Here's how the video feed came back after 35 minutes. But there were still issues with the announcers' audio, and with how that synced with the images. pic.twitter.com/hhdJYUwtTn
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 25, 2023
And there were times where this led to the broadcasters being well ahead of the images, such as “Strike three called!” before a pitch was delivered:
One sync issue? "Strike three called!", while the video still showed the pitcher winding up. pic.twitter.com/0UOpyO6Hm0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 25, 2023
This didn’t go great on Bally Sports West’s Angels feed, either:
The Angels announcers are broadcasting from their cell phones. The audio is about 3 seconds ahead of the video, but it’s better than seeing this, which is what we saw the first 2 innings. pic.twitter.com/ZVIzSoxObt
— Geoff (@GeoffOC_) July 26, 2023
Angels TV broadcasters Mark Gubicza and Matt Vasgersian are calling the game off their cell phones.
They're basically calling in to air the game on live TV, which now has a working feed.
Crazy times.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 25, 2023
And this all led to some unusual situations, including beat writers (like Angels’ writer Sam Blum of The Athletic, who has been banned from a show on the team radio station for “negativity“) trying to tweet play-by-play, and also noting there was no replay review:
There's some sort of technical difficulties at the ballpark. There's no internet. And it sounds like neither broadcast is working right now.
I will update you pitch by pitch.
The count 2-2 to Taylor Ward.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 25, 2023
There's no replay available in this game, the Tigers just announced.
Should the broadcast return, there's unlimited crew chief reviews.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 25, 2023
Blum noted that the Angels’ radio broadcast (which is one of only two teams, along with the Toronto Blue Jays, to currently not send radio broadcasters on road trips) was somehow managing to do a broadcast. However, that broadcast was working under extremely difficult conditions:
The Angels' remote radio broadcast is working.
But they're using a singular All-9 feed, and relying on the MLB research tool for balls and strikes.
Sounds extremely difficult.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) July 25, 2023
So this is all going great for the Angels and Tigers. And for the in-bankruptcy Bally Sports. But, hey, at least Tungsten Arm O’Doyle and the Akron Groomsmen didn’t have their games televised either.
