I was on a work trip to New York City so I took the opportunity to visit MLB Network Studios this past weekend. I had to “cross the river to the Jersey side” as Bruce would say since MLB Network is in Secaucus, NJ. They took over the site from MSNBC and rebuilt much of the interior to create a state of the art facility before their launch two years ago.
When you arrive at in the lobby there is a trophy case with some Emmy and other broadcast awards and a row of comfortable leather chairs facing a large flat screen tuned to MLB Network programming. Everywhere you look you see attention to detail with baseball related items including a picture of Big Papi in mid swing.
Once inside there is a white wall signed by Major League Baseball players as well as other famous guests, as you turn the corner the wall is reserved for Hall of Famers who have made a visit and judging by the amount of autographs quite a few have stopped in.
The network’s control room looks like something from NORAD with a multitude of monitors, switches and lights. From here producers coordinate their live programming which can be very complicated when there is a full slate of games going on. One of the coolest features in the room is the Ballpark Cam control where one person can remotely control all the pop up cameras that are located in parks around the Major Leagues. The control looks like an Atari joysick surrounded by lights labeled with ballpark names.
Studio 42 is a replica stadium modeled mostly off of Citizen’s Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia named in honor of Jackie Robinson. When I walked in I could not help but think how great it would be to have a waffle ball game in there. Near one of the dugouts was a white bucket holding two distinct yellow plastic bats, so some employees must have had the same idea. The network uses the studio to host many of their shows and events and also uses it for demonstrations of plays in specific games. There is a dented faux brick behind home plate from an errant pitch by Al Leiter in one of those demonstrations. Here again there is great attention to detail; each of the dugouts contains batting helmets for all of the teams in the league. League standings are updated daily by arranging the magnetic team logos on the right center. The studio even pays homage to Bull Durham with an ad on the left field wall featuring a bull and the quote, “Hit the bull, win a steak.”
Studio 3, named in honor of Babe Ruth is the home of MLB Network’s studio shows MLB Tonight, Hot Stove and Quick Pitch as well as breaking news coverage. The main desk sits on a platform shaped like home plate and there are high-def monitors everywhere you look. The studio was a compelling site even without anyone broadcasting in it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of my tour was the MLB Productions side of the complex. In their area they house the all of the footage that has been preserved from MLB History. Row after row of neatly marked tapes are filled with more hours of footage than you could watch in your lifetime. This is where employees and researches pull footage for documentaries, feature films, and network shows. As someone who loves history, technology and baseball I felt like a kid walking into Disney World. The area was recently used by Ken Burns for research and this is where clips were pulled for the upcoming movie Moneyball. (Fenway West’s Sonoma Dave was an extra in the film).
Red Sox Nation has a significant connection to MLB Network’s on-air talent. Hazel Mae covered the Red Sox on NESN before joining the network (she was coming in later that day to cover any breaking news) and Peter Gammons is now a contributor. Former Red Sox Kevin Millar and Sean Casey are also on-air contributors.
Visiting the network on a cold January day only made me miss baseball more. As great as my tour was, I left wishing the place would be buzzing with mid-season activity. I will surely make another visit next time I am in the area during the season. Loraine Fisher and Louis Barricelli of MLB Network went out of their way to accommodate my request for a tour and treated me as if I were a visiting Hall of Famer. It is so nice to get an opportunity like this and to see that MLB Network is embracing baseball bloggers. MLB Network has a good thing going and is sure to grow into a powerhouse in sports programming.
If you do not have flash you can view the photos here.
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