Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 July 13

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July 13

Televised baseball

Regardless of the stadium, and regardless of the channel, it seems that televised Major League Baseball games always use the same default camera angle: behind the pitcher and slightly to his right. Of course it makes sense to view from behind the pitcher — you get a better view than from behind home plate, and any third angle would prevent you from seeing whether it's a ball or a strike — but why always from the right? Seemingly relevant articles, e.g. Major League Baseball on cable television, all focus on the broadcasting history and similar facts; I can't find anything about cinematography. Nyttend (talk) 01:53, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

One thing I can tell you for sure is that it's been done this way for a long time. (As with thes pictures[1][2] from 1960.) I've never seen it discussed as such. But one logical reason is that most pitchers are right-handed, so shooting over the right shoulder results in a better viewing angle of the pitcher's delivery much of the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:40, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

And it's not 100 percent. I google imaged the subject "first televised baseball game center field", and while it didn't give me precisely that answer, it gave a number of other examples of televising from center field. Here's one[3] where the camera is looking over the pitcher's left shoulder. But most of the other examples, from various times and places, are looking over the right shoulder. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:54, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

And here's one [4] that's looking straight over top of the pitcher, so you can see the batter well no matter the handedness of either the pitcher or the batter. These counterexamples suggest that another factor is where they can conveniently place the camera. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:57, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Why not (usually) straight-on like in Bugs's example? Batter's Eye. 97.93.100.146 (talk) 11:39, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

The camera at Wrigley Field, for example, is at the left edge of the batter's background area (as seen from home plate). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:08, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

For reference, this page shows the angle of the center field camera for all MLB stadiums as of 2015. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ranking-baseballs-center-field-camera-shots-2015-update/ 209.149.113.4 (talk) 15:48, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

An excellent find. All of them either looking over the pitcher's right shoulder to a greater or lesser extent, or pretty much straight on - which makes it harder to see the plate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:08, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

According to this article, most of the issue comes from cost. Setting the camera offset meant that you could have a lower viewing angle and place the camera in the bleachers rather than have to mount it ~45 feet above the field and directly in the batter's eye. uhhlive (talk) 16:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Also Anglophones read left-to-right so it might seem less backwards. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:07, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

And it's not just baseball.[5] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Paranoid/steroid rap song

Today I heard a rap song on a radio at a park. The song rhymes "paranoid" with "steroids". In the chorus, it seems to say "shxky Mona", even though it could just be "shaking him on". At the end, it repeats the word "soldier" many times. The artist is male. Google apparently has never heard of this song: [6] What song is this? Enzingiyi (talk) 22:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I tried a more focused search, also allowing for "steroid" to be singular, and one of the hits was something by Eminem called "8 Mile Last Tree Battle", at a site in Brazil that I will not link in case it was a copyright violation. This contains the lines:

This guy keeps screamin hes paranoid.

Quick someone get his ass another steroid!

However, despite the title, the fact that Google found it, and the presence of lyrics that may relate to actual wars, the word "soldier" is not in it, or at least not in this version of it.

--69.159.60.163 (talk) 04:23, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but this doesn't really seem to be the song I heard. Enzingiyi (talk) 21:53, 14 July 2016 (UTC)