MSBL plans daily news broadcast at World Series
By Jeff McGaw, MSBLNational.com
Somebody once commented that Pete Rose was just like any other guy with dark hair, brown eyes, and 4,256 major league hits.
Similarly, the MSBL is just like any other amateur adult baseball league with balls, bats and a budding, multi-media infrastructure with the capability of producing live television and streaming it to every corner of the globe.
"Yes it's very unusual,” said Vic Puglisi, the MSBL World Series' program director, but it's what separates us. While the MSBL isn't the only adult baseball organization that holds tournaments on Cactus League stadiums, the league does bring panache to the world of adult amateur baseball tournaments. "A former facility manager once told me ‘all the other leagues are a Chevy,” Puglisi said. "The MSBL,” he continued, is a Cadillac. That always stuck with me.”
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So in addition to putting its players on the best fields in the world for 25 years in a row at the World Series, the MSBL will now stream live video coverage of some games from Tempe Diablo Stadium.
More impressively, it will produce an hour long, live daily news show from its new Players Club on the mezzanine level on the first base side at Tempe Diablo. That show will be hosted by Joel Becker, a professional radio man and the voice of the MSBL World Series radio broadcasts for the past few years.
Amber Baleto, a budding actress from Los Angeles whom Puglisi calls a "rising star,” will co-anchor the segment.
If you want to get a sense of what the MSBL is and where it came from, the Live Daily News segments – all of which will be archived at www.msblnational.com/ – is a great start.
The guest list currently includes the likes of Val Lewis who founded the Sacramento MSBL in 1987 and pioneered the father-son division 15 years ago. |
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| Other guests include John Debenedictus, |
Amber Baleto will co-host the Daily News Live |
president and founder of the Tri-State 48+/55+ MSBL, and creator of the World Series 50+, 60+, 65+ and 70+ Divisions, Jackie Piro, who along with husband Dan Piro were the backbone of HardBall magazine, and Kurt Knop, the first World Series tournament director.
"It's really a time capsule. We're telling the story of the MSBL with the people who were there when it started as well as those who are involved in it now,” said Tournament Director and Daily News editor and producer Tom Prendergast.
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Puglisi's son Michael, 27, who studied production at California State University at Northridge, will be in charge of production. Members of the World Series staff, including Prendergast and former World Series umpire Ken Vanderpoel will help produce the show, but the wheels at tournament central – Prendergast's domain – will continue to turn. "All the normal things we do we're going to have to continue to do,” Prendergast said.
All broadcasts will be archived for later viewing and will be available for viewing by visiting the MSBL national web site at http://www.msblnational.com/.
The National MSBL web site is now also the home of the former HardBall Magazine. It publishes feature stories, league news and tournament results from across the country on an ongoing basis with a staff of two working full time. The magazine went fully on-line in January. |
| Joel Becker, voice of the MSBL World Series |
It's not the first time the MSBL has produced a |
televised segment at the World Series. In 1994 it hosted a show with a similar format and broadcast it from a sports bar in Mesa. "We had full blown editing capabilities,” Puglisi said. "We had to copy everything and edit it and make a master copy and it took forever.”
The final product, which was viewed through hotel closed circuit television, was called Sports Central and was very successful Puglisi said. "In 1994 I saw how players responded to it and how sponsors responded to it. My goal is to hopefully make this such tremendous quality that I'll be able to pick up a sponsor next year. We decided we'll do it a professionally as possible given our resources,” he added. The new foray into live streaming broadcasts will help MSBL connect with younger audiences who hopefully will want to be part of the MSBL, Puglisi said. The broadcasts "take the World Series and the MSBL to a whole new dimension,” Prendergast said.