In the Broadcast Booth – Part 2

September 3, 2007

(I’ve decided to break this into parts so it doesn’t get so dreadfully long that people stop reading partway through)

Kings and Queens of Multitasking
Accompanying VIDEO | PHOTOS | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Radio Booth (1st through 3rd Inning)

Laptops, loose papers and binders full of stats, promotional copy and media notes are shuffled and spread out covering every inch of the wide counterspace, the cord to one of the two small televisions gets jiggled so the missing picture comes back online with the MASN broadcast, and the speaker yells, “TEN SECONDS! CHARLIE, PUT YOUR HEADPHONES ON!”. Shortly after, the headphones come down over the ears of Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler, radio voices of the Washington Nationals. Jack Hicks, the ‘Jack Of All Things’ engineer sits at a sparse elevated counter behind the broadcasters with his equipment taking up small real estate in the corner, and young Jageler sits between us in his custom jersey with a junior Bob Carpenter scorebook. As I surveyed the myriad wires, I wasn’t sure Jack would find two spare outlets in his setup for my camera and laptop, but thankfully he did and didn’t seem to mind the intrusion. The disembodied voice of producer Steve Ray floats out of a small speaker at the end of the counter. I can faintly hear the extremely familiar intro to the pre-game WTWP radio show, hear “Go!” yelled from the speaker, and Charlie Slowes launches into his pregame introduction, flipping through pages as he spouts off game records and player stats and history without missing a beat. Wow! I thought I multitasked well, but these guys put me to shame.

Preparing for go-live took about an hour in the booth with most prep done before, such as the Chico interview, or the perpetual process contained in the form of binders, notebooks and stat sheets. The recorder Dave Jageler had carried around all that time on the field was placed in a dock. Jack Hicks spoke into his headphone, “I’m ready to feed Dave here,” and then he reached to flip on a small black speaker behind his equipment and I was suddenly privy to the mystery person, producer Steve Ray, on the other end of the headphones.

“Ready to send Dave?” Steve asked via the speaker. “Almost done. Rolling!” and the pregame interview with Matt Chico played as it was fed across.

With the feed sent, Steve Ray entertained me with blooper reels from previous broadcasts. The funniest part was that most I had heard when they aired live. I never realized talking about IHOP could be so hilarious. Charlie, Dave and Jack laughed along. “How do you keep the laughs out?” I asked. “We don’t!” they laughed. Prior to arriving in the radio booth, I had envisioned a stuffy locked room with a red light outside the door where no one could speak while “On The Air”. The booth was far lighter and busier than my imaginings with people entering and leaving, chatting, and dropping off bottles of water. I couldn’t even bring myself to leave the energy and atmosphere to get some dinner in the press cafeteria, so that’s a pleasure I still haven’t tried!

Bob Carpenter popped over to borrow some whiteout and the conversation turned to golf. Golf must be huge in the baseball world. Chuck Gardner popped over from the San Francisco booth for his “Jack-u-weather forecast” and the three laughed and reminisced about working together when they broadcast for the Bullets. Dave was off getting dinner at the time.

“Everywhere I go, I see people I know. After this many years, you know people everywhere,” Charlie later said. I remembered how Dave got along with Greg Papa down on the field earlier. I got the sense of a huge fraternity among broadcasters.

Dave returned and they finished preparing for the game, taping stat sheets to the window and spreading out their binders and notes across the counter. Dave copied the lineup onto his scoresheet, making certain notations under each player’s name. He keeps a running binder of game stats on each player so he can look up what kind of streaks they may have over X number of games. A Giants media guide sat next to him upside-down. Charlie copied down game information onto a sheet he uses as his “out of town scoreboard” sheet in conjunction with something on his laptop. Both use Bob Carpenter scorebooks and say they have for at least 10 years, long before Carpenter arrived on the Nats scene.

Dave’s wife arrived in the booth with two friends and dropped off Little Jageler in a custom jersey with #11 on the back. I asked him if the number was for Ryan Zimmerman and he nodded. Little Jageler pulled a smaller-sized scorebook out of his bag and began copying down the lineup. When the game began, I watched him score and he did an excellent job on his own. In the top of the 1st inning when Dmitri Young fielded a grounder and ran to the bag, I watched Little Jageler carefully write “G3 to bag”. I was impressed! Dave checked on him in between each inning to make sure he was doing okay with the scoring. Later, Jack helped him put on a set of headphones so he could hear the broadcast. Too cute!

A TV hanging from the ceiling reflected the jumbotron over right field. However, only those of us sitting in the back row could actually see it. Charlie and Dave each had a small tv next to them on the counter with the MASN broadcast and the view of the field. Dave opened MLB Gameday on his laptop, which kind of surprised me. I always thought it was for the purpose of fans, never realizing that it could be used “in the field” as well.

“Good evening everybody! From RFK stadium here in our Nation’s Capital an absolutely gorgeous night shaping up for game 2 of this 3 game series between the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Nationals. Charlie Slowes, Dave Jageler with you…” and they were off! I noticed that while Charlie flipped through notes and the media guide, Dave delivered his pre-game portion without turning a single page. That man must have the memory of an elephant. I’ve noticed him rattle off statistics and information in the past off the top of his head as well. They cut to commercial and Steve Ray’s voice floated out again with the time information and relayed how much time Slowes would have for the “Around the Major Leagues”. They went back on the air and he read them, finishing as the national anthem started. “Perfect timing, thanks Charlie.”

As soon as the Star Spangled Banner ended, they lifted the windows up and it was time to play ball! Little Jageler muttered mostly to himself, “Bang zoom go the fireworks. The Washington Nationals are on the field. In game 2 of this 3 game series…” I think he’s heard that before a time or two.

A new booming disembodied voice filled the room. “First pitch 7:06 PM. Temperature 82 degrees”. I later heard him give the score on particular plays (but not all plays) such as a simple “5-4″ or “stolen base – 12th stolen base of the year”. I later learned that voice belongs to David Vincent, the official scorer. I need one of those voices fed into my ear! I constantly ask Mr. Chatter who made a play if I had the camera focused on only one player involved.

And the play-by-play begins. They use surprisingly little technology outside of their laptops with internet and the televisions for seeing the pitches thrown closer than the view from their seats. No super-secret software that I saw or promo copy text fed to their screens. Promos are read off a large sheet of paper in their stacks on the counter. Both carry on conversations looking at each other and volley between conversational tone and flipping through stat sheets without missing a beat. The level of multitasking is phenomenal. If one says an incorrect ball/strike count, the other uses hand signals to correct it.

A foul ball bangs off the press box somewhere near the television booth. So close!

Joel Oxley, Sr. VP of Broadcasting at Bonneville popped into the booth. Everyone sent him to Barry Svrluga’s blog post and comments. He began reading the comments on Jack’s laptop as the play-by-play resumed. The roles had changed and it was Dave Jageler’s turn for play-by-play while Charlie chatted with Oxley.

Three innings was flying by and I realized my time in the booth was nearly up. Lisa would be arriving soon to escort me next door to the tv booth. I began packing up my laptop and cameras so I wouldn’t delay her. Being in there was an absolute treat and I will listen for those private jokes more carefully now that I’ve seen them in action!

From my observations, a lot of what they do is second nature at this point in their careers. The hard part is keeping all those stats rolling as the season goes on and up-to-date, then customizing their binders to fit their organization methods and style to meet their needs while on the air, and they both have their own ways of doing that. Much like I created my own style of scoring in order to translate it to quickly labeling photos into play-by-play and a post, they created their own streak tracker, milestones, and stats to fit their on-air relaying of the game and situations. It’d be interesting to take a closer look at those player sheets Dave Jageler created and see if it makes sense to me, the average lay person fan. I’m fairly certain my memory wouldn’t stack up, though.

Tomorrow – Part 3 – the TV Side

Posted in Media, Washington Nationals