It’s springtime in Arizona and one of the rites of spring is in full flourish, baseball Spring Training. In Florida, it’s called the Grapefruit League; here it’s the Cactus League.
Spring Training in Arizona has been a tradition for devoted fans since 1947, when just two teams, the Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants, came here to prepare for the regular season. Today, 15 teams train in the Phoenix metropolitan area in the greatest concentration of professional baseball facilities found anywhere in the United States. We attend a few games each year, watching the teams that train in our immediate area: the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants.
Yesterday, Rolande and I and our guest, Tracey Wilkins ventured out to Salt River Fields for a game between the Diamondbacks and the Milwaukee Brewers. It turned out well, the D’Backs pulled off an exciting 6-5 win with 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth and Tracey and I got some pretty good pictures of the action.
Today, I’m posting some of those pictures, including an action sequence. It consists of three shots taken in succession of a play at second base. The first picture shows the runner beginning his slide, the second his arrival at second base and the third shows him regaining his feet. It’s a slideshow, so click on the right side to advance, on the left to reverse direction.
My next photo is a missed play at first base, an errant throw that gets by Lyle Overbay. Remember him? Formerly with the Blue Jays.
Here’s another play at second. Yes, the runner was safe. He’s there but the ball has not yet arrived.
Today’s final picture captures a close play at home plate. The D’Backs pitcher, Todd unleashed a wild pitch which sent his catcher scurrying to the backstop to retrieve it. The opportunistic baserunner dashed for home, hoping to beat the throw from behind the plate. This shot portrays that fateful moment when the ball and runner arrived simultaneously. The pitcher Todd was there to make the tag and the ever vigilant umpire called the rascal “Out!”.
For those interested in the camera settings, I simply chose those that would give me a fast shutter speed. In this case, I put the camera in Shutter Priority mode, with the speed set to 1/1000 sec. By so doing, the camera adjusts the aperture to provide the correct exposure. I’m guaranteed the speed I want but give up control of the aperture and consequently depth-of-focus. With an ISO setting of 160 and the brilliant Arizona sunshine, the resultant aperture settings varied between f4.0 and f8.0 with most falling in the range of f5.6 to f7.1. Some of the background is a little out of focus. The background is not vital to the scene, it’s clear enough to provide the context of the picture and it contrasts the sharpness of the chosen subject. The desired result.
I also put the focus in servo mode to allow the camera to hold focus on moving objects and I had all my focus points switched on. (Similar to shooting ducks with buckshot, not rifle bullets.) Lastly I put the shutter control on its continuous setting, enabling me to take bursts of pictures (4-6 per sec) by simply holding down the shutter button. That way I get a sequence of shots for each play that I photograph. I can display the entire sequence or simply select interesting shots from the sequences.