The famous Japanese slugger Sadaharu Oh produced a beautiful crack with handmade tamo-wood bats. And the legendary scout Buck O’Neil once said that only Ruth, Josh Gibson and Bo Jackson could generate a sound like that. But there remains something different about the sound that emanates from Ohtani’s bat. For one, it is loud. It is also perfectly toned, the crack of the kind of textured percussion that usually demands headphones. And on the night of April 4, it was so loud that some viewers assumed it must have been enhanced by ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast.
Phil Orlins, ESPN’s lead producer for its MLB coverage, assures that it was not. The sound was natural. As Ohtani swung at a high fastball from the White Sox’s Dylan Cease, the high-speed collision of ball and bat was picked up by four wireless mics buried in front of home plate at Angel Stadium. It was then transmitted to a production truck, added to the broadcast’s sound mix, and sent out to viewers across the country. “
Exactly the way it sounds if you’re standing by the batting cage during BP,” Orlins says
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