Two men, one aware of his situation and one oblivious.
This
event happened a couple of seasons ago. Despite
having his back (mostly) to the event, he's still able to…interfere…with the
ball and prevent a painful, if not serious, injury. Albeit trained, his situation awareness was
present, even in the distraction of an interview.
This
event happened last night. This time,
the "gentleman" was facing the entire incident and lifted not a
finger to interfere. It's not that he
didn't care, it's that he was completely oblivious. Fortunately, the lady wasn't injured beyond a
momentary embarrassment to her dignity.
Two men, one who was heads up, and one who simply had his
head up.
Of course, I'm eliding the wisdom of conducting an
interview so close to the sideline of an active playing field—that's sometimes
unavoidable in the business—and I'm eliding the ladies' own lack of SA. Ms Oliver should have known better and been
more aware herself. I don't know the
baseball lady, but she seemed (based on no information at all) to be more
inexperienced. Still, she should have
known better, too, especially with an active batter. None of which detracts from the one man or
absolves the other.
Eric Hines
10 comments:
I think most of this is about experience and training: Longoria knows what the sound of the ball coming off the bat sounds like, perhaps well enough to have a sense of where a particular sounds means the ball is going. Or perhaps his experience means he knows to look out whenever a ball is hit.
The man in the Pam Oliver video can be seen with a camera in some views so I'm assuming he is not a professional athlete. It also means he has something in his hands and, without training and experience, it's easy to get brain-lock about just dropping whatever you're holding in order to react, a problem that's usually more acute when you're not the one at risk.
And based on the look on the baseball interviewer's face after Longoria's catch, I'd say he has an adoring fan for life. I can't blame her - I had pretty much the same look on my face just watching the video. :+)
And the Longoria catch may have been staged:
http://is.gd/bEwk4D
Still, even if it was staged, it was pretty amazing.
Frankly, Gardner exposes his own ignorance of the game.
Impossible catch? Actually, not that hard. And there's no reason to believe he didn't see it. It's in his peripheral vision (watch any Bob Cousy clip for peripheral vision in another sport). There were other visual cues off camera (perhaps), like the reporter's camera crew, whose reaction would have told Longoria to look. The catch itself is easy enough. I've made the same catch--as have actual professional pitchers--on the mound, which is rather closer to the hitter, albeit in my field of view the whole way--of a hard line drive shot right at me. And caught holy h* from my manager for not using my gloved hand ("But, coach, there wasn't time." "Shut up. 25 laps.") And ask any school boy who's ever played a game of pepper or burnout bare handed just to show how tough he is.
It's certainly true that Oliver's cameraman--if that's who he was--was likely not a trained athlete. He certainly did have a case of brain-lock, if he wasn't simply oblivious. But facing the ball, with a hand full of camera, he still could have moved to push Oliver out of the way, to have tried to knock the ball, to have interposed himself. And possibly to have utterly botched any of those moves, with Oliver still getting hit. What's inexcusable is that he didn't even try. Watch the video again. Watch him cringe and duck away--after the impact on Oliver.
Maybe you're just more forgiving than I am.
Eric Hines
He could have stepped in front of her. No points for the footballer.
I just think you're asking a lot of someone (the cameraman standing next to Oliver) who hasn't been exposed to situations like that. I once heard a definition of a policeman as someone who moves toward trouble rather than following the normal human instinct to move away. I believe there's a reason policeman (fireman, EMTs, military forces, professional bodyguards) receive training.
The cameraman may not get points but I don't think he deserves to lose them either. And I say this as someone whose reaction to a baseball coming at me during a game is to start squeaking like I've just seen a mouse and trust my husband is quick enough to save me. :+)
As for Longoria, Snopes thinks it was staged. Longoria is being coy about it. I don't know - but even if so it was a heck of a feat.
This is America; Snopes can think whatever he likes. [g]
If I were in Longoria's shoes, I'd likely be coy, too, but I'm like that when people make stuff up about what I've done or not done.
And I'm not asking anything at all of a grown, adult man. I don't expect him to make a one-handed catch of the ball. I don't expect him necessarily to succeed in protecting Oliver. I'm not asking him to hurt himself in the attempt (although he would not have: the pass caught Oliver flush, and she wasn't hurt). I just expect him, with his lack of training, to try. He chose not to. Not only no points, but loss of whatever points he'd thus far accumulated.
Eric Hines
I agree with Eric. Of course I despise a man who hasn't prepared himself to try.
You say there is a reason that some men receive training. That makes it passive: they receive it. You might better say that they sought it. The best men do.
One more thing. You say our cameraman hasn't been exposed to situations like that. I suggest otherwise. I assume (with all of the risks inherent in that) that this man has worked the sidelines of football fields before--as Oliver's cameraman (if that's who he was), he's worked professional football sidelines before.
He has been exposed to situations like that before.
Eric Hines
You guys must have faster reflexes than I do. In his place, I'd still have been in the "Wha -- ?" mental stage when the ball hit.
The first video is an out-an-out fake. Not "staged". It's a Gillette commercial with the CGI that goes along with it.
I played 4 years of college ball and 1+ of independent pro ball as a catcher and first baseman.
Yes, a batted ball can be caught bare handed without injury, but there's no batting cage (which is there to specifically to prevent this kind of thing). I didn't see a tarp in front of the plate to protect the grass. The ball curves
too much given the distance (~130'-140') or speed. A batter who has hit a ball toward someone like that will react and be yelling "heads up!". Something the batter in this video didn't do.
Sorry, it's a complete fake.
As for the second. It's very likely he had been in that situation before. Only every other time it happened, the receiver was there and caught the ball. All of us watch and see the inherent danger. This guy had, through experience, "learned" otherwise.
Post a Comment