“Coco Crisp to the wall, he leaps, and…”

Posted on August 19, 2010

Coco Crisp of the Oakland Athletics almost makes a great catch at the center field fence on a deep fly ball against the Texas Rangers during the game at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on August 7, 2010 in Oakland, California. This ended up being a home run by Rangers batter Taylor Teagarden. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

A few weeks ago I had a fun weekend assignment in Oakland to shoot a few A’s games against the visiting Texas Rangers. Sports Illustrated was doing a story about the Rangers, so Michael Zagaris and I were at the park to shoot features and game action of the American League West leaders. For Saturday afternoon’s game I wanted to go up high and try to get something cool and different. After shooting pre-game features in the Rangers dugout and the first inning down on the field level to get the starting pitchers I made my way up to the top of the Stadium to shoot from one of my favorite positions at the Oakland Coliseum: upper deck, section 313, amongst the tarps.

I go up to this spot several times a season in order to have fun and break things up a bit. It is a very high angle on the first base side of the diamond and the pictures get better and better as the game moves along since the sun moves and the shadows get longer and longer. Oakland A’s Vice President of Stadium Operations David Rinetti is a great guy who is always happy to help out the photographers at the ballpark, and whenever I ask he allows me to go up and sit on the steps in section 313 so I can try and come up with a special picture.

I feel a real sense of excitement every time I shoot from section 313, especially when I have the Canon 800mm 5.6 lens with me. When I get up there and look down on the field I see a glorious blank canvas, just waiting for some action to happen to I can create a photograph that no one else has. I always want to get that special picture that you can’t see anywhere else, and I also want my editor to be happy.

This game was plodding along in a rather dull fashion with the A’s getting out to an early lead, and continuing to pile up the runs as the light got better and better. Unfortunately, there was no good action. This is the beauty of baseball. It is what drives many photographers crazy. It is what I love about the game. There is so much standing around with nothing happening, but when that one fast-moving climactic moment occurs you have to be ready- and you better not miss!

The big moment of this game came in the top of the 8th inning when light-hitting Rangers catcher Taylor Teagarden crushed a Jerry Blevins pitch high and deep to center field. A’s center fielder Coco Crisp broke back on the crack of the bat and sped to towards the wall in center. Since I have been shooting baseball for so long I know that as a photographer you need to follow every fly ball that is hit, because you never know when a picture will happen. Many times you get blocked by an umpire or someone else on the field. Sometimes the light sucks. Sometimes there is no face. Many times the picture is not sharp. Most of the time- for me anyway- there is no ball. I never get ball! Of course getting the ball near the glove when there is a play at the wall involves much luck, as you begin firing the camera at nine frames-per-second before the peak moment of action. By the time the exciting play is over I always look at the back of my camera and chimp to see if I got lucky. Like I said above, for the most part I never am. However, on this particular day I got lucky.

My vantage point from high above the playing field ended up being perfect for this play. While I was shooting the sequence of Crisp going over the wall for the baseball with the 800mm lens I did not know if he had caught the ball or not. Once he crumpled to the dirt warning track below I could see he came up empty. It was time to chimp! To my surprise, for the first time in what seems like decades, I actually had one real nice frame (see above) with the ball just barely tipping off the end of Crisp’s glove, safely over the all for a home run. And it was sharp! With a Canon Mark IV! That’s right, no umpire blocking me, no bad light, and I even had face!

Upon seeing this frame on the back of my camera I got that rare feeling that only occurs a few times a season. That feeling that I might have made a really nice picture thanks to lots of luck and the magic of shooting from section 313. Unfortunately this picture has not been published yet, but I hope it ends up surfacing in the near future, or before Crisp starts wearing another uniform.