In The Field: Beautiful Baseball Light
Matt in his office
Back in 1990, the great William Albert Allard photographed minor league baseball for National Geographic. His photos from that project are some of my favorites, not just because it’s baseball, but how he used light and shadows and action (or, often lack of action) as the defining characteristics.
And when you’re blessed with beautiful light, you have to take advantage of it. For the last few months, I’ve been shooting my sons’ baseball games at various fields around Central New Jersey and the light has not always been beautiful.
However, on evening on Sunday, I was graced with some of that warm June light that makes it nice to be outside on a late-spring evening.
Shooting from deep in the left-field corner – mostly because I wanted to stay out of the way – and a smidge because I was superstitious and the boys were playing well so I didn’t want to move – I caught my son and his teammates in some fun spots. The sweaty, dirty catcher, the guy “on deck,” the slide into third, the run down, the home run celebration.
As the gorgeous warm evening light faded and the day turned in a cool late-spring night and the waning gibbous moon appeared, the sweaty, dirty catcher switch his gloves and took the mound in a tie ballgame to try to help his team get a win.
Alas, it wouldn’t be so on this night. Matty came in and pitched really well – his first eight pitches were strikes, and he struck out two and got a pop-up out on the third. The game would go into extra innings (he’s 12 and they normally play 6 innings. This went 8 full innings).
A long drive by Matt looked like it might push a run home, but the runner on third never advanced. Missed opportunity if you ask this spectator.
The score stayed tied, then Matt’s team went up and it looked like they would win. But in the bottom of the 8th, a couple of costly errors sunk the Redbirds and they lost 6-3. A real gut-punch loss.
But it was still a good day to be watching baseball, trying to channel Allard and his vision and light. There’s still more baseball to play this season with some upcoming All-Star games for Matthew. I’ll be back out there trying to stop the stitches and get some cool shots.
(As an aside, there was some happier news on this day. Earlier in the afternoon, under light not quite so beautiful, my other son Chase came up a winner. His 13U team won their Championship. These boys have been playing together for a number of years, and went through some tough losing seasons. To see them all stick with it and come up winners is great. Many will be headed off to high school next (some will be going into 8th grade) and the step up to high school ball/14U ball is big. Some may call it a career. If so, not a bad way to go out.)
Hamilton A’s 13 U Champs (Chase is in the white helmet. He was on first base when the game ended)
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