While MLB Network has spent the past decade providing full-scale television coverage of the Major Leagues for avid baseball fans, the network has, in recent years, made an effort to curate programming specifically for young fans and players. Since 2016, Saturday mornings have featured the show "Play Ball," which includes
While MLB Network has spent the past decade providing full-scale television coverage of the Major Leagues for avid baseball fans, the network has, in recent years, made an effort to curate programming specifically for young fans and players.
Since 2016, Saturday mornings have featured the show "Play Ball," which includes one-on-one baseball demonstrations and conversations with some of the top personalities in the game. And since '19, the network's flagship studio show "MLB Tonight" and regular-season morning show "MLB Central" have produced a segment aptly named #SandlotToTheShow, during which its wide array of distinguished analysts provide youth players with individualized feedback and instruction on videos featuring them hitting, pitching, catching and fielding.
On Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, MLB Network will be taking that segment to the next level with a livestream set to air across its social media channels -- Twitter, Facebook, Twitch and YouTube -- as well as on MLB.com. The digital interactive lesson will be hosted by Robert Flores and boasts an impressive lineup of analysts -- Sean Casey, Ron Darling, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Dempster, Cliff Floyd, Carlos Peña, Bill Ripken and Dave Valle. These former Major Leaguers have more than a decade of experience apiece. Some were All-Stars and World Series champions.
By using the hashtag #SandlotToTheShow and tagging @MLBNetwork, parents and kids can submit their videos to Instagram and Twitter for a chance to be featured on Tuesday's stream. In addition to offering tips for improvement, the analysts will engage in a real-time question-and-answer session with fans, kids, parents and coaches.
Ripken expressed his excitement for the unique format of this inaugural program.
"I love the idea that we can have some interaction," Ripken said. "I've had a little bit of back-and-forth with a couple of the kids that have sent videos in, and I've said, 'Hey, try this and then get back to me.' And they do. … This is just going to be a little bit of a variance -- the same old stuff with a new twist to it.
"It's a product of having a segment that has worked, that we've received good feedback on and we like doing. So, I think that's just a normal kind of evolution, shall we say."
The #SandlotToTheShow segment has been so successful, in fact, that in August, the team earned a 2020 National Sports Emmy Award for Social TV Experience -- MLB Network's first win in that category -- besting the likes of TNT's "Inside the NBA" and ESPN's "Always Late with Katie Nolan."
It's part of the Network's desire to meet kids where they are -- online. Ripken is acutely aware that today's young people, who are often colloquially known as the digital generation, prefer to use their phones and tablets even when they might have flatscreen TVs at home.
"We understand that we need today's youth to be the baseball fan of the future," Ripken said. "My age group of baseball fans is kind of what we've had, and I'm still a big part of being a fan of baseball. But we also understand as an industry that maybe these kids of nowadays age absorb things in a different manner. So this type of event might trigger a little bit of interest. If I can give somebody a tidbit or two to make them better -- when you get a little bit better at the game, have a little bit more success, you want to be more involved in the game.
"We also know that not everybody is going to grow up to be big league players, that's a given. But if we can give these kids something to help them through their high school season, maybe get them into college, maybe let them use the sport to better themselves one way or another without ever playing professionally, that's a cool thing.
"And I think that we have enough diversity in our analysts when it comes to different positions being played, different thought processes and different skill sets that we all can give them something to make themselves a little bit better, make them want to play baseball a little bit longer. And the longer they play baseball, the more of a fan of baseball they're going to become."
During the first year of the campaign, the #SandlotToTheShow hashtag was mentioned on social media more than 13,000 times, leading to more than 300 video breakdowns and even a special training experience between the analysts and young fans at Cleveland's Play Ball Park during All-Star Weekend in 2019. By the conclusion of '20, the analysts and some special guests -- including National Baseball Hall of Famers and Team USA softball players -- will have provided individualized feedback to more than 600 youth baseball and softball players across the nation.
As Ripken attests, that level of growth doesn't happen without the investments made by the people involved across the Network. During "MLB Tonight" production meetings, there was always enthusiasm in the room when a Sandlot segment was set to be included in that day's show. And on "MLB Central," Flores was often seen standing off to the side with his phone out, recording the analysts' breakdowns for his own social media accounts.
With that type of environment as the backdrop, Ripken and others hope Tuesday's livestream will be a valuable avenue for young fans and players to connect with the game.
"Everybody enjoys the segment; I don't think there's any doubt about it," Ripken said. "To have buy-in and having people enjoy the segment as much as we do, I think it's going to show. And I think that people tuning in, they're going to see that, and they're going to like what we do."
Betelhem Ashame is a reporter/editor for MLB.com based in New York. Follow her on Twitter @betelhem_ashame.
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