Kansas City, MO – August 31, 2014 – Kauffman Stadium: Carlos Santana (41) of the Cleveland Indians during a regular season Sunday Night Baseball game
(Photo by Phil Ellsworth / ESPN Images)
Bat boys are part of every MLB game, but what if fans could be virtually transported to the baseball diamond, watch a game from their perspective via Snapchat Spectacles and see what it’s like to be an arms length away from professional athletes? It’s a scenario that the Cleveland Indians social team showcased on Tuesday night during the team’s 7-5 loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“Now we’re on Snapchat,” remarked designated hitter/first baseman Carlos Santana as he grabbed Spectacles from one of the bat boys and appeared to put on the eyeglasses, which wirelessly sends 10-second clips to users’ accounts.
“We have a couple different goals for our Snap account, one of which is to provide our fans behind-the-scenes views of the game day experience, essentially stuff our audience wouldn’t normally see,” said Joel Hammond, Indians Assistant Director of Communications. “That can take many forms; while the viewpoint of a bat boy isn’t technically “behind the scenes,” — it’s very much out in the open — that is one of the most unique perspectives a fan can have.”
In the video posted to Twitter, one of the bat boys can be seen running up to the umpire in between pitches and handing him a new set of baseballs, with the umpire not acknowledging the bat boys’ new piece of hardware.
A second later, you receive a first-person view of giving outfielder Daniel Robertson a high-five after he scored a run. In addition, during the 60-second clip, fans are able to watch a few seconds of game action as a bat boy shifts his head from side-to-side giving viewers a look into the adjacent fan section behind home plate.
Hammond said that he and his social colleagues have earned the trust of the Baseball Operations staff “when it comes to doing fun, cool stuff.” When he illustrated the idea of Spectacles to the group along with the why, when, what and how, “folks were on board” with the creative concept, something that wasn’t obtrusive to players.
Though he added that the content “could be risky,” given the close proximity to the players and being within their space, Hammond explained that he had vetoing power if anything didn’t present the players or Indians organization in a positive light.
“For instance: you saw James (one of the bat boys) capture Daniel Robertson coming back to the dugout after scoring, which was awesome. Had Daniel, in the heat of the moment, happened to swear or something, I probably wouldn’t have published that to our story,” Hammond said.
When asked about what’s next for Spectacles — which have also been creatively leveraged by other MLB organizations such as the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates — Hammond was tight-lipped, only saying that “we have a few other things up our sleeve that we haven’t seen too many other teams do, but I can’t give away the surprise!”
