An Unexpected Ball Game
Edit: I added more pictures here in honor of their World Series victory
I had no plans to go to the Yankees game last night — in fact, I had not known one was scheduled — but a friend of a friend had good tickets, so there I was.
I’m the first to admit that I know nothing about sports in general, baseball being no exception. The knowledge I do possess comes from scattered rememberings of conversations I was not a part of, and many hours playing Mario Baseball. On my side was my D200 and Nikon 300mm f/4.5 ED-IF AIS — plenty to get me into the game.
The highlight of the night was Hideki Matsui’s game tying home run in the 8th inning.
Matsui's Home Run
This was immediately followed up with a second home run by Posada which I did an excellent job in not photographing. It’s not that my photos of it were bad, I thought I’d use a few minutes to take in the game rather than shoot after Hideki’s home run so there were no photos. It was a decision I immediately regretted.
I did get my camera up in time to see what was going on the field as the play was in review for something like “fan interference”.
5 frames per second has always been enough for my purposes, but a faster certainly would help in sports photography. This is the only photo I got of actual batter contact with the ball.
I’m pretty happy with my first outing into sports photography (second, if you count a snowboarding event I went to earlier this year). I wish I could have brought more lenses with me, but c’est la vie. If anyone has connections to get me in the photographers areas in the stadium, I certainly wouldn’t refuse.
