If a telecast of the World Series loses power so a national TV audience can’t watch the game, is anything happening on the field actually happening? The answer might actually be no, as far as MLB and Fox are concerned.
During the fourth inning of Game 1 of the World Series, the Fox broadcast lost power, first with a blue screen of death, followed by complete loss of picture and then a message to viewers that technical difficulties were occurring. The telecast then had to go back to the FS1 studios with Dan O’ Toole, Eric Karros and Dontrelle Willis.
What the national Fox audience didn’t know or couldn’t know was that play on the field at Kauffman Stadium also stopped, presumably because the game wasn’t being shown on TV. (And possibly because no video was available for replay.) The entire ballpark— players on the field, coaches in the dugout, fans in the stands — was left waiting as MLB was figuring out what to do.
Apparently you can’t see this at home, but Terry Collins, Ned Yost, the umps and Joe Torre are discussing something. Perhaps replay?
— Barry Svrluga (@barrysvrluga) October 28, 2015
You can’t just STOP THE GAME!
— Bitchuation (@Bitchuation) October 28, 2015
The broadcast eventually resumed on Fox with the international feed called by Matt Vasgersian and John Smoltz — rather than the U.S. feed with Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci being shown — continuing what has to be one of the most exciting, then surreal beginnings for a World Series in recent memory.
