{"id":4400,"date":"2010-07-22T21:31:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T04:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=4400"},"modified":"2010-07-22T21:44:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T04:44:36","slug":"see-you-in-des-moines-says-bob-otto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=4400","title":{"rendered":"See You in Des Moines (says Bob Otto)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One man, one camera, 160 teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n(click banner for original news story at OttoinFocus)<\/em><\/p>\n

Written by Bob Otto on July 22nd, 2010<\/p>\n

YUCAIPA, CA \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I emailed Maddy Flanagan, ISC photographer extraordinaire, and the lovely wife of Fastpitchwest Editor, Jim Flanagan.<\/p>\n

I needed some camera lens advice.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maddy I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of shooting the NAFA World Series in Des Moines, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking (usually I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do much of that) of buying a 300mm lens. What f-stop is yours?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That would be awesome if you could shoot NAFA!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Maddy.<\/p>\n

Well, Maddy gave me her lens advice, I bought the lens (received it yesterday) and this morning I told NAFA Executive Director, Benjie Hedgecock, that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be in Des Moines.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a long drought for me. My last national tournament was the 2000 ISC World Tournament in St. Joseph, Missouri. A great tournament and wonderful city, by the way.<\/p>\n

Now, 10 years later, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m off to Des Moines. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m jazzed about it. Just imagine, more than 160 teams battling in six divisions for World Series championships from Aug. 13 to Aug 22.<\/p>\n

More than 160 teams!<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gulp.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I just realized that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to attempt to shoot a LOT of teams and players. The most I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve covered before was when the ISC World Tournament had the double-knockout, 48 team bracket.<\/p>\n

Make that a double, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gulp, gulp.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

But since Benjie and I have emailed back and forth, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ready to go. Ready to photograph and report as much as possible. We want the NAFA website to sizzle and sing with game reports, photos, and ballpark updates.<\/p>\n

And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where we need the help of the teams making the trip to Des Moines.<\/p>\n

You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to see this guy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c me \u00e2\u20ac\u201c lugging around two cameras, one hanging off each shoulder, along with a notepad. Oh, and a tape recorder stuck in my pants pocket. (If you talk faster than I can write, you will be recorded.)<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be asking you managers for a few minutes of your time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c perhaps BEFORE a game is about to begin. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be asking to talk with your players. I promise I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take much of your time because I know you want to focus on the games at hand.<\/p>\n

And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always on the hunt for short profile stories. So if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got someone on your ball club I should know about, then flag me down.<\/p>\n

And if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s someone who wants to help me out, perhaps gathering post-game information (I can furnish you with a guide), that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be awesome.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been emailing and talking on the phone with many of you for the past year. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking forward to finally putting faces with the names. This is going to be fun.<\/p>\n

See you in Des Moines!<\/strong>
\n
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One man, one camera, 160 teams (click banner for original news story at OttoinFocus) Written by Bob Otto on July 22nd, 2010 YUCAIPA, CA \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I emailed Maddy Flanagan, ISC photographer extraordinaire, and the lovely wife of Fastpitchwest Editor, Jim Flanagan. I needed some camera lens advice. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maddy I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of shooting the NAFA World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,2,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}