Woke up to thousands of new followers. Here’s a crash course on the things we do here for the new folks #Baseballiscinema<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/LzsPb8UcUW<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 John DeMarsico (@JohnDeMarsico) May 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n There is more of an overlap than you might think between Criterion Channel obsessives and baseball dorks, which explains why earlier this week, some of DeMarsico\u2019s most memorable homages spread through the internet like wildfire. (\u201cDudes rock,\u201d said one Twitter user, savoring a particularly well-executed De Palma <\/a>tribute <\/a>during a game against the Cubs<\/a>.) I was similarly enamored, so I called up DeMarsico to ask him about how he\u2019s melded his love of movies with his love of the Mets, why he believes baseball is the world\u2019s most cinematic sport, and the one homage he\u2019d someday love to integrate into his repertoire if conditions and technology allow. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n learning that the director for the Mets’ broadcasts is a huge film nerd is so cool. guy will just put random shots that look like this mid-game because he’s a DePalma fan. dudes rock so hard. pic.twitter.com\/u5ByDjI5Bl<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 balta (@BGarcN2) May 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Luke Winkie: What\u2019s your background in film and TV? How did you end up working in sports broadcasting?<\/p>\n John DeMarsico: I grew up a die-hard Mets fan, and I played baseball my whole life. But I was also obsessed with movies and film culture. I studied film in school, but I had no idea that I\u2019d ever be stepping inside a TV truck, let alone the TV truck for my favorite baseball team, the Mets. I ended up interning for SNY, the network that I currently work at, in 2009, and was hired shortly after my internship. That\u2019s where I really went to school. I went to the Bill Webb baseball directing school. Bill Webb was my predecessor and the first kind of rock-star baseball director. He directed the World Series on Fox for two decades.<\/p>\n He was a real maverick. The way that people watch baseball in the year 2025 is really thanks to him. He had an elevated style. He was a guy that took a lot of chances, and I learned my craft from him. When I took over in 2019, I brought a little bit of my own personality and personal philosophies into what I\u2019d already learned from Bill.<\/p>\n Was Bill Webb a film nerd? Did you guys talk about movies at all?<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t know the first thing about movies. He probably went to the movies once a year. But he spoke cinema, even if he didn\u2019t know it. He covered the games, but he was most interested in elevating the drama and telling a story. He\u2019s the guy who embraced taking shots of fans in between pitches, in tense moments. You\u2019d have the mom praying in the stands, a woman clutching her necklace, a father and son locked onto the field. And he\u2019d take those tight shots of the pitchers where you only see their eyes, the brim of their cap and the top of their gloves, and it would really elevate the moment. He was using cinematic language within the context of a baseball broadcast. With my film background, I saw it right away. I said, \u201cWow, dude.\u201d I thought, This is filmmaking. When I got into the role, those things became part of the grammar of the way I tell stories.<\/p>\n When you took the reins, what made you comfortable pushing the envelope further, and including some genuine cinematic homages in the game broadcasts?<\/p>\n The homages are fun and they\u2019re a big part of what we do at SNY. But it really is about that bedrock foundation of making every single cut have cinematic intention. There are so many moments over the course of a baseball game, and baseball is a unique sport when it comes to television because you have the time to implement cinematic devices. There\u2019s time between pitches, there\u2019s time after foul balls, there\u2019s pitching changes. It\u2019s not constant movement. In order to implement all of these cinematic bells and whistles, you need moments of stillness to set things up. And that was actually the first kind of lightbulb moment for me. The confrontation between the pitcher and the batter, those moments of stillness before the pitch is thrown, and it harkens back to the Western genre, the showdown at the O.K. Corral, mano a mano. I love the American Westerns, but I\u2019m drawn a little bit closer to the Italian Westerns. They\u2019re just so highly stylized, and it\u2019s sort of my taste. When there\u2019s a big moment in a baseball game, the crowd\u2019s going to let you know when it\u2019s a big moment. They\u2019ll get up and tell you, and you\u2019ll feel it in the truck. It\u2019s my job as the director to take that moment and turn it into an event for everybody watching at home and try to elevate it.<\/p>\n One of the shots you directed that went viral mirrored a famous scene in Apocalypse Now, where a G.I.\u2019s head is blended into a sunset filled with helicopters. In your version, of course, the G.I. is a baseball player, and that sunset is the outfield. That\u2019s a pretty radical shot to include in a sports broadcast. How did it come together?<\/p>\n I love the smell of napalm in the morning https:\/\/t.co\/N5m18DlgiV<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/24kuKilAcL<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 John DeMarsico (@JohnDeMarsico) May 13, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n When I consume cinema, I\u2019m constantly taking notes, thinking, Hey, this may work in a baseball broadcast. And I have a really incredible crew. I sit in front of a monitor wall, look at all the monitors, and call the shots verbally. There\u2019s a technical director named Seth Zwiebel who sits beside me and physically presses the buttons and pulls the levers and makes things go on the air. He takes my ideas and makes them a reality. He\u2019s a magician with all of my crazy ideas, and once we build something, we have it forever. All of those subtle dissolve effects are in our back pocket to implement at any time.<\/p>\n Another shot that went viral is this crazy De Palma homage, where we\u2019re seeing a batter in the box through the glasses of a fan behind home plate. There\u2019s some real artfulness to that composition. How did that happen?<\/p>\n A+ camerawork \ud83c\udfa5 Everything about this video is \ud83d\udd25 pic.twitter.com\/1foy4aMqZ8<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 MLB (@MLB) May 13, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n We have a guy with a handheld camera who roams the ballpark and looks for interesting angles that the hard cameras mounted in some places can\u2019t get. He goes on the field and shoots the players warming up, and when they hit home runs, and in the dugout. So that shot is literally our cameraman sitting behind home plate in position just in case Francisco Lindor hits a home run. He sees out of the corner of his eye someone wearing wide-framed eyeglasses. I go, \u201cSet up that shot and we\u2019ll use it.\u201d The guy kept moving and moving, and I finally said to our cameraman\u2014and this is a bit of TV magic\u2014\u201dtap him on the shoulder and tell him to stand still and look to his left for 20 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the perfect framing. It didn\u2019t really do anything storytelling-wise, but our job as TV professionals is to occasionally jar viewers out of their seats every once in a while. Also, shots like that keep the crew motivated. Who\u2019s going to top that? How can we do better tomorrow? And so when you\u2019re doing a game every day, it\u2019s really important to keep stuff like that part of the vernacular of what we\u2019re doing here.<\/p>\n Were you given carte blanche to go crazy with that experimentation? I\u2019m curious to know how you developed the confidence to really challenge what was possible or expected in the context of a sports broadcast.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a combination of a lot of things. It\u2019s my predecessor Bill and the gravitas that he brought to the director position before me. He set a precedent where he had carte blanche to do what he wanted, because he was Bill Webb\u2014he was the Steven Spielberg, the Martin Scorsese of the baseball world. And so he was able to take chances like nobody else and without any repercussions. And he would try things in the regular season that may not have even worked, but he wanted to perfect them for the postseason and the World Series. He was doing the biggest games on the biggest stage. And so following in his footsteps, you\u2019re already given a certain amount of space to work in. Second of all, it\u2019s our producer, Gregg Picker, and the trust that he has for all of the creative people working on our broadcast, whether it be the announcers in the booth or us in the truck.<\/p>\n Producer Gregg Picker (left) and director John DeMarsico inside the production truck during a game at Citi Field. That\u2019s how we\u2019re able to take those chances and try things that may or may not work. And that\u2019s the beauty of baseball, because if it doesn\u2019t work today, there\u2019s literally a game tomorrow. And listen, I\u2019m not going to sit here and tell you that I haven\u2019t raised a few eyebrows with people wearing suits and ties at SNY. But the coolest part is it\u2019s been almost universally embraced by the fans.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your take on the pitch clock? In general most fans are happy the games are moving faster, but I imagine, for someone in your role, you might miss some of the simmering tension that defined the baseball broadcasts of earlier eras.<\/p>\n I was wholeheartedly against the pitch clock because of what you said. Major League Baseball was bragging about how they were going to cut 30 minutes out of the games. In my mind I was like, \u201cThose 30 minutes are where SNY shines.\u201d But we all fell in line, and you know what? Overall it\u2019s made baseball a better product. I have a bigger problem with the further mechanization of baseball when it comes to robot umpires. You know what I mean? We\u2019re still trying to get viewers, we\u2019re still trying to entertain them. And shooting and taking a shot of an umpire on the phone with somebody at MLB headquarters, trying to figure out whether a guy was safe by a fraction of a centimeter, is not an exciting shot, and it\u2019s not good TV. It used to be when you had an exciting play at first base, you could take a shot of the umpire punching the guy out, then you get a shot of the batter reacting, the pitcher reacting. It\u2019s taken the most exciting part of the game and turned it into a police procedural. You have to be careful if you\u2019re Major League Baseball not to mechanize the game to the point where there\u2019s no humanity left.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Alex Kirshner <\/a><\/p>\n Is there one specific type of shot you want to get into a Mets game that you haven\u2019t been able to yet? Do you have any white whales?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Greatest \u200bStar Wars\u200b Show Just Ended by Making One of Its Heroes Do the Unthinkable <\/p>\n It\u2019s One of the Weirdest Mistakes in Movie History. I Spent Months Investigating How It All Went Wrong. Critics Savaged Her Novel. It Sold Millions Anyway. Her New Book Has Something to Say to Them. <\/p>\n Judy Blume\u2019s Most Controversial Book Is Now a Netflix Series. There\u2019s a Radical Change. Man, with the crew that I work with, I really feel like it\u2019s all on the table. It\u2019s just a matter of finding the moment to do it. There\u2019s one thing that I\u2019ve tried to do for years and I\u2019ve never gotten it to really work. It\u2019s the dolly zoom<\/a>. You know the shot in Jaws where Brody\u2019s on the beach and he sees the shark and the background is coming closer to his face as they push it? That shot is my white whale, and it\u2019s really hard because I don\u2019t have any room for the dolly track at Citi Field. It would have to be a handheld zoom, and I can\u2019t get it right. I may have to think of ways I can do it synthetically. It would be great in a moment of high tension for the pitcher on the mound.<\/p>\n It\u2019s really easy to visualize. I can totally imagine a dolly zoom in a baseball movie at the bottom of the ninth and a full count.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the thing. All of this stuff makes sense within the context of sports broadcasting. It\u2019s just a matter of taking what\u2019s available and doing it. Baseball is cinema, and at SNY, we take that very, very seriously.<\/p>\n Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n
A+ defense \ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2ee3109d-4403-4095-862e-96e622272435.jpeg\")
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\nAlejandra Villa Loarca\/Newsday RM via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2fd369bc-33b4-436f-bfbe-882e40b17a5f.jpeg\")
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