The Pitch: A Home Run Connection between Baseball and Television News
In baseball, the Home Run Derby is an exhilarating event where the best hitters showcase their skills by smashing towering home runs. The batters get a lot of attention, and rightly so. But they can only hit those home runs if they get the perfect pitch.
Unlike a traditional baseball game, the designated pitcher intentionally throws hittable balls during the Home Run Derby, giving the batter a better chance of popping one over the fence.
A similar dynamic needs to unfold every day in a television newscast. Just as the pitcher sets up the batter for a home run, the news anchor must throw a perfect pitch to weather, allowing the broadcast meteorologist to hit the top of the weathercast with impact—a metaphorical “home run.”
It’s a pitch, not a toss
In a newscast rundown, the transition to weather is usually slugged as the “Weather Toss.” That phrase suggests this is a throwaway moment, pardon the pun.
READ MORE: 4 TYPES OF WEATHER CONSUMERS CARE ABOUT
When you toss something, you usually throw it without much intent. The motion is slow, soft, and somewhat haphazard. A pitch, however, is much different. When you pitch an object, you usually throw it quickly, forcefully, and with purpose. That’s how the transition to weather should be as well.
Control the conversation
In some newsrooms, the pitch to weather is scripted, and consequently, it sounds like it’s scripted when it’s read on-air. The pitch should always be ad-libbed so it sounds more conversational.
Who decides what the news anchors and meteorologists should talk about? The meteorologist, of course! The weather segment starts with the pitch to weather.
During my on-air career, I worked with some of the best news anchors in the business. There is no one better than Dave Ward, who anchored the news at KTRK for fifty years. Even with all his experience and knowledge of Houston weather, I still told Dave how to pitch to weather every night. And if I forgot, he’d ask! That’s a sign of a true professional who cared about the news product we produced. Dave understood that I needed him to set me up so I would hit a home run right off the top of my weathercast.
I did that with every news anchor I worked with. I didn’t expect them to know what the weather was like earlier in the day, remember what it was like outside when they came to work, or know what I would talk about in my weathercast. I told them.
That doesn’t mean every pitch to weather was serious, short, or lacked spontaneity. The best news anchors would take my suggestion and run with it, often adding their own observations or asking probing questions about the weather or forecast. There were certainly light-hearted moments as well. But even these would set me up so I could seamlessly transition into my first weather graphic.
Working as a team
In baseball, the pitcher throws the ball in a way that gives the batter a chance to succeed. Likewise, the news anchor must set up the meteorologist to succeed. The pitch in baseball is not just a random throw—it’s a calculated move designed to set the stage for victory. Similarly, the pitch from the news anchor to the meteorologist should be a deliberate action aimed at delivering The Essential Message.
Tim Heller is an AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist, Talent Coach, and Weather Content Consultant. He helps broadcast meteorologists uplevel their performance and productivity by communicating more effectively and efficiently on-air, online, and on social media.