Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while wondering if I can plug in an electric heating unit inside the Macktaz Field press box without popping all the circuit breakers ...

** One of my many "bosses" these days -- and that's sort of an honorary title, as I am pretty much a free-lance announcer and truly beholding only to the Internal Revenue Service -- has a weekly column in the local daily newspaper and it's usually a good read. And this week, my friend did one of the toughest things in the world for a columnist to do -- which is, of course, to admit he was wrong about something.

He wrote that he was wrong in his initial objections to staging a winter high school sports season here in the commonwealth in the midst of a pandemic. Indeed, he and I had many discussions about that very premise in the days and weeks leading up to the winter season -- some public via cable TV, others private -- so I can assure you he wasn't kidding when he was skeptical about the potential for the season's success.

But as we enter the "Fall II" season as designated by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association as the "wedge" season created for football (as well as a few other sports), I might suggest that my friend may have actually been a little hard on himself. 

Yes, we just finished a winter sports season, and for the most part, I'd say it was quite successful. I hoped it would be from the start, and maybe I was a little cavalier in dismissing the risks at first. There were still some terrible and potentially dangerous flaws in the process, and I am not hesitant to say that if not for the grace of God -- and the incredible dedication of local athletic directors, coaches and athletes to try to make it all work -- we could have toppled into a COVID-festering pool of infection that could have had a very tragic outcome.

Granted, my opinion is tainted somewhat by a sense of dread that I experienced every time I stepped into a gymnasium or an ice rink these past few months. I've somehow made it through the past 11-plus months without as much as a non-anticipated sniffle, but I still can't get even one foot through the door at Gillette Stadium to get an injection even though I qualify for it. 

I wear the masks, like I'm told. Even when I had to call a hockey game inside a cold ice rink, I wore it -- despite the constant fogging of my eyeglasses from the captured breath inside my mask that apparently had nowhere else to exit except up.

Alex Salachi, Tom Faria and me in maskless times.

At this point, I really want to give proper props to my broadcast partners, all of whom shared one characteristic. We're old men. Alex Salachi, who worked with me on King Philip and Mansfield basketball, is 67 and one month older than I am. Tom Faria, who worked the bulk of Mansfield basketball games with me, is 64 and had to miss the first week of the season because he was recovering from a mild case of the coronavirus. And Glen Farley, who worked King Philip and Bishop Feehan hockey with me and subbed for Alex on one KP hoops doubleheader, is 65. We're all in that demographic that COVID-19 loves to pick on.

But somehow, we survived and got our games in -- but, some sports more successfully than others.

On the basketball side, it seems that the schools I covered managed to fend off the dreaded virus as it stood on the periphery of their borders. Mansfield's boys ended up playing 16 games and the girls played 14 (despite initial 10-game scheduling limits) and the only games that were postponed were caused by COVID cases among their future opponents. The KP boys and girls were sailing along smoothly for four weeks of Sunday doubleheaders (something I'd love to see considered for the post-pandemic world) until they hit a speed bump at the end of the season with eight positive cases reported within the high school. Only one of the originally-scheduled games was canceled.

Hockey was less successful. I was supposed to be behind the microphone for four games originally. All but one of those were rescheduled because of COVID, and some of those were rescheduled so many times, and on such short notice, that we just threw up our hands and pulled the plug on what was left in the final week of the season. One extra game was added to the schedule, and somehow, that managed to survive intact.

Through it all, I can't minimize the amazing commitment made by the local athletic directors to make it work. Mike Redding at Mansfield and Gary Brown at KP were always on call, adjusting schedules and checking with state agencies and even manning the disinfectant sprayer between games to keep safe  their athletes and the few fans allowed into their gyms. Ditto for Mark Houle at Attleboro, who helped me track down a few scheduling changes in the midst of the season.

I could sense the exasperation in their voices every time I'd call looking for some clarification about the upcoming schedules, especially when games were being added on short notice. No doubt, trying to conduct a high school sports season during a pandemic has been a challenge the scope of which none of them could have anticipated. And to think, we still have to worry about Fall II, Spring and the following "real" Fall season for 2011-12 coming in short order.

Players wore masks and still played on.

The bottom line for the winter season, however, is that it would never have worked if not for the commitment and sacrifices made by the coaches and the athletes. They were on the front lines of this battle and they were at greatest risk. Some coaches understandably opted out of the season to protect their families and young children from exposure (and they should not be criticized for that), but for the most part, coaches and athletes marched forward into the unknown and did everything they could to fill the competition void. 

It's been said many times that the lack of high school sports last spring was potentially harmful to the kids that look forward to sports as part of their well-rounded education, and more harmful the longer their estrangement continued. Some naysayers claim that sports is a costly luxury and not worth the financial investment, but I've never believed that -- and the importance of participation was driven home to me again this year when I saw the energy and commitment these young people put into their games. They wore the masks and used the hand sanitizer and sat distanced from their teammates as they were told to do -- and as far as I can tell, they didn't complain.

They made the 2021 winter season special, and I thank them all for their efforts. And lest I forget, my thanks also go to camerapersons Maureen O'Neill, Scott Tooker and Loren Carpenter for their excellent work for the two cable systems for which I worked this year.

** One unanticipated offshoot of the pandemic season was the proliferation of live-streamed games being televised to the general public via the Internet or on their local cable boxes. I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of positive comments from viewers of the games I did for North TV or Mansfield Cable Access -- I guess they are overlooking my frequent stumbles as a fledgling play-by-play announcer -- and they always ask if this will continue into "normalcy."

Honestly, I can't say.

Prior to this year, the MIAA frowned upon live coverage of high school sports by local cable TV, although after a quick review of the 131-page MIAA Handbook, there's nothing in it that even remotely addresses media coverage. There are links on the website to media guidelines, in which can be found regulations that cover the association's postseason tournaments .

The MIAA "owns" the rights to broadcasting its tournaments, and has given the National Federation of High Schools Network "exclusive rights" for offering live video coverage of them. Local cable systems and radio stations are expected to pay rights fees to the MIAA and delay broadcast so as not to conflict with the NFHS telecasts. I've actually worked NFHS football and basketball telecasts in the recent past.

BUT ... as with everything these days, nothing seems entirely set in stone. The MIAA often waives the rights fees and allows local cable to record the games. Last year I worked as an announcer in eight MIAA Tournament games for two different cable systems without a penny coming out of our coffers. And I know for a fact that four of those games were presented live to one cable system's home town with the only requirement being an announcement delivered in-game that the MIAA had waived the rights fees and supports educational athletics, blah blah blah.

The difference this year, however, has been the proliferation of Internet accessibility to the games. Either through YouTube, Facebook Live or the cable systems' own live-streaming capabilities, games went out far and wide to a new audience. Indeed, I was told that some of my Mansfield games were actually seen in Aruba.

As I said, the MIAA has taken at least an implied dim view of live television because it is perceived to be hurting the gate -- lessening potential in-person attendance at the host schools. It's also not cheap for a cable system to commit the resources to suddenly televise 10 games or more without receiving income to help support it.

Some cable systems, like North Attleboro and Attleboro, actually pay their on-air talent. Others don't. Some pay camera operators as free-lancers, others find volunteers, and there are many that use remotely-operated cameras provided by Hudl (the link explains what it is) or other high school sports-centric web sites, without the benefit of announcers or adjustable fields of view.

I watched a lot of games this season to prepare for the games I would be announcing. Some had great camerawork and knowledgeable announcers. Others had iffy camera work and people that would not even bother to find out who the players on the other teams were. And those wall-mounted Hudl telecasts? Well, as long as I could see the numbers, they were useful. But the eye-strain from having to sit with my nose touching the computer monitor was a pain.

Obviously, your best bet is a cable system that has a commitment to covering the events as the big boys in network TV do. But that costs money, and fewer bucks are flowing into the cable TV coffers these days.

The big providers, like Comcast and Verizon, are required by law to send a share of their profits back to the local cable systems to help fund local programming. But thanks to the Trump administration, a recent Federal Communications Commission ruling recently reduced the amount that the providers must return. That, and cord-cutting by viewers who prefer streaming apps to what the cable systems provide, is making it a financial strain to provide professional-looking local programming.

This year, one of the outfits for which I worked increased the number of games we would cover in boys' and girls' basketball from six to 10 because of the sudden popularity of live-streaming the games to fans that could not attend in person because of pandemic restrictions. But there was no added income to support the expenditure. Postponements of two of the games lessened the blow a little, but still, these games don't reach your home or your smartphone by osmosis.

This is a similar conundrum to the one that newspapers faced in the 1980s and 1990s when the Internet started hitting its stride. Because we thought we could use the new information source as a means of promoting our product, we put all the news on our websites for free -- not realizing that it wouldn't be long before readers would always expect the news for free on the World Wide Web, and not want to pay for the print edition. I've already been told one story about a woman that complained to one of my bosses that his system wasn't televising enough of her kid's games. Turns out, the complainer was not a subscriber to the local cable system and thus was not paying her minuscule share of the cost to televise the games as part of the cable service fee.

An old and familiar complaint, updated for new media.

So no, I can't tell you what will happen next year. My guess is that things may go back to normal where local cable systems are concerned, but there may be more amateur video popping up on YouTube and people will be strangely satisfied by blurry images and shaky camerawork that will be reminiscent of those first flickering pictures that were captured by buzzing cathode-ray tubes in the 1940s.

Ah, progress.

** I had more to talk about, but this has run long and you probably could use the break. I hope to have a new episode of The Owner's Box After Dark completed within the next day or two, so maybe I'll touch upon some of those topics then.

Cheers to all. Wash your hands and wear your masks, please. Stay safe.