NESN Sports
NESN has their studio less than a mile from where the Renegades practice. We have always hoped they could help us spread the word about beep baseball. This station is the primary station for all things Red Sox and Bruins. How cool would it be if they would help us tell our stories? If we could begin a relationship with them, maybe they could help us get the word on the street. A word to help us recruit new volunteers and new players. Help us reach people who never thought they could be part of a team for the blind and visually impaired. So many Baseball fans watch the Red Sox, Many of them have vision loss and would never dream of playing baseball. That dream can be a reality…if we could just reach them!
Pulling it Together
Sometimes a story gets hot and you need to ride the wave. Sometimes its all about reaching the right person at the right time. With the world’s first ever book about beep baseball doing some book signing events in the area in early June, the author, David Wanczyk had a family member with connections at NESN. They agreed to come out and do a story on the team. We had a short window to pull this off and a bunch of coaches and players came down on their lunch break, or took time off of work to put on a demo for NESN to use on their broadcast. The footage shows many of the Renegades and features coach, Aaron Proctor explaining the game
Side fun after the Footage
Since this was thrown together quickly at the last-minute, Rob Weissman was forced into action to pitch. This 4th string pitcher did not have much confidence he could put balls on the bat for the camera. We even joked about staging the video to make it look like they were hitting him. In the end Weissman was ON! Most of the players were getting hits. Even David Wanczyk and the NESN reporter, Shaun Blaney got into the fun
below is a video we made during the practice showing both Dave and Shaun hitting
After the day was over, we gave a ball to Shaun and challenged NESN to a game. We figured the proximity of their studio being so close that maybe we could hook them. To date, nothing has been scheduled…but stay tuned!